Fall From Grace
by LittleBluestem
Summary: Kid Curry is recognized and jailed. It is up to his partner, Hannibal Heyes, to (once again!) bust him out. However, as usual, complications ensue... Finally complete, albeit not so polished!
1. Chapter 1

Hat brim pulled low over his eyes, Kid Curry was dozing in the corner of the stage coach as it pulled into Sweetwater to take on one more passenger. The sun hung low in the Texas sky, but it was still shining brightly. It was about two more hours until sunset, and that would be just about the time they would arrive in Abilene, where Hannibal Heyes would be waiting for him at the American House Hotel.

Curry had money in his pocket from his part of the delivery job for "Big Mac" McCreedy and he was looking forward to spending it. The toss of a coin had sent his partner from Red Rock to Abilene, while the Kid had been dispatched to Odessa. Both agreed that even though it wasn't exactly the "Queen of the Cowtowns," as her Kansas namesake was known, Abilene was certainly much livelier than sleepy little Odessa. After riding several days from Red Rock, Curry's horse had pulled up lame. Once he'd hand-delivered the land deeds to Big Mac's associate, rather than wait around for it to heal up, the Kid had decided to sell the animal to the local livery stable and splurge on a stage coach ticket. Now the journey was almost at an end, and the Kid was looking forward to meeting up with his partner. He figured Heyes owed him a steak dinner with all the trimmings for getting the better job. Then maybe they'd order up some hot baths, and afterwards, it was off to the Silver Spur for some poker and a nice, cold beer. A few nice, cold beers, he amended to himself, smiling in thirsty anticipation.

Curry had always made it a point to be aware of his surroundings, but ever since he and his partner had been going for amnesty, he had learned to be even more vigilant. He speculated to himself what the odds were that the newest passenger would know him. Pretty slim, Kid reckoned, but nonetheless, even though he had woken instinctively as the coach slowed on its entry into the town, he kept his hat down and continued to feign sleep. Surreptitiously, he shifted in the seat and squinted out of one slitted eye, peering from underneath the turned-down brim of his brown hat. The door of the stage was pulled opened to allow the newest rider to climb inside, but as luck would have it, the coach was oriented in such a way that the man was completely silhouetted against the afternoon sunlight, and his features were obscured by shadow. Annoyed, Curry adjusted his position so that he'd get a glimpse after the man was seated.

"Well, I'll be jiggered!"

The folksy exclamation was sudden and loud.

Blue eyes snapped open, only to be met with the sight and sound of a .45 caliber pistol being cocked menacingly close to his face. Curry's right hand froze in mid-motion.

"You're fast, Curry, but not that fast!" chortled the man holding the gun almost touching his nose.

The voice and face of the man were instantly familiar. He was fair-haired, clean-shaven, mid-30s, with even, somewhat ordinary features. The unmistakable glint of a tin star winking from the man's vest as he reached across with his left hand and slid the Kid's Colt from its holster caused his already dark mood to turn ever blacker. And just when things had been going so well, for a change…

His captor shoved the gun in his own empty holster and then pulled handcuffs from his back pocket. Curry began to sift through his brain in an effort to place this all-too-familiar and unwelcome lawman.

"Come on, Curry. Hands behind your back – you know the drill," instructed the man.

As the Kid complied, leaning forward in the seat, he heard the cuffs snap shut with a metallic finality.

As the rest of the coach passengers reacted with a mixture of stunned surprise and vocal dismay, the marshal tucked his own gun into his belt. Then he roughly pushed Curry back into the wooden seat with one hand to the chest, and reached up and pulled the Kid's hat back down over his face. Curry was livid! No reason to add insult to injury, he thought resentfully. He silently weighed his options: Should he speak up or would that just make matters worse for him? Better to bide his time…

"Sheriff, with all due respect," ventured the little old widow lady sitting across the coach on the opposite seat, "but I don't believe that boy is an outlaw. He has the nicest manners you ever did see. He carried my bags for me and when we stopped, he helped me in and out of the carriage. He's such a polite and gentlemanly young man."

"Begging your pardon ma'am, but I'm United States Marshal Brett Ellery, at your service. You see, ma'am, Curry and Heyes have always been known to be polite – even whilst robbing a train or a bank," explained the lawman.

"How do you know that's Kid Curry?" demanded another passenger. "You barely had time to look at him before you shoved his hat over his face."

"Not to brag, but I've a great memory for faces, and also for physiques, and for little details like the style of a fella's boots or the trim on his hat. Curry spent a day and a half in jail under my care, so's I had plenty of time to memorize his appearance. And I'd know that sheepskin jacket anywhere. But I see you got a new hat, Kid." The last remark was directed toward the prisoner.

This elicited some general remarks of surprise and curiosity, but no comment from the handcuffed man.

"I'm the marshal of Abilene nowadays. But I used to work as a deputy in El Paso. Marshall Slater was my boss. Remember him, Curry?"

Oh, yeah. Curry remembered Slater alright. And even though he'd never known Ellery's name, he remembered how he knew him now. Thanks to Grace Turner. Wonderful.

Curry recalled Ellery as being a quiet man, who hadn't said much before nodding off at his desk, but evidently, when given an audience, he was quite the storyteller. Kid couldn't help think of his partner as he recognized the signs of a body settling in to spin a lengthy tale.

"About a year or so ago," he began, "Marshall Slater got a telegram from South of the border. It was from a woman down in Hidalgo who claimed she was gonnna bring in Kid Curry and she was requesting that he arrange to get the reward money all set and waiting for her."

"How'd_ she_ know it was the Kid?" asked one of the passengers, a middle-aged man with thinning hair and a mustache.

"Oh, she told us everything in the telegram," replied Ellery. "Must've cost her a fortune to send it! Said she'd been a passenger on a train the Devil's Hole Gang had robbed. She gave the name of the train line, the date it happened, the exact spot the hold-up occurred, even what seat she'd been sitting in. We had quite a few days to check out the story while they traveled up from Hidalgo, and it all held up. The railroad checked their records for the passenger manifest and corroborated all the details. She even told us what folks to contact to arrange the wire transfer of the reward money. That Grace Turner is one smart cookie. The Marshall himself told her she done something no man was ever able to do."

"How'd she do it? How'd she bring him in?" asked another passenger, this one young, barely in his twenties and dressed in cowboy gear.

"She tricked him! She used her feminine wiles on him," answered Ellery with an admiring shake of the head.

"Oh, the poor boy. Bamboozled by a Jezebel," murmured the old widow sympathetically.

"Yes, Ma'am," agreed Ellery. "Mrs. Turner asked Curry to be her escort as she carried a considerable quantity of extremely valuable diamonds from Mexico up to El Paso. She said she'd pay him out of what she got after they delivered them. So he done it."

"Did she ever pay him? For helping her with the diamonds?" queried the first passenger.

"Diamonds!" spat out the lawman scornfully. "There weren't never no diamonds! She just had a little valise with some pebbles in it!"

"And Kid Curry fell for that?" asked the third male passenger, a middle-aged man in a navy blue business suit, with a note of skepticism in his voice.

"He never asked to see them? He never opened up the valise when she wasn't looking?" the other men queried.

"Well he must be a trusting soul," answered Ellery with a smirk.

"OR a damn fool." scoffed the businessman with derision.

"Well, she was quite a good-lookin' young lady," explained Ellery with a sly wink, which prompted many knowing nods from the menfolk and a judgmental scowl from the elderly matron.

"Maybe he fell in love with her…" suggested the youngest passenger.

Curry couldn't take it any longer. "I'm sittin' right here!" he protested in annoyance, his voice muffled by his hat.

But the rest of the passengers ignored him and continued discussing him avidly.

Ellery went on with the story, "He had all the appearance of a man betrayed by a woman he cared about. And that was the clincher, too. He said to her, right in front of the Marshall and us deputies: How long did you know I was Jed Curry?"

"Jed? That's Kid Curry's real name?" asked the cowboy.

"Yeah, and I never even knew that myself until a couple days previous because I was the one what had to take care of all the paperwork for Slater. Jedediah Curry, that's his Christian name, and he up and admitted it in front of God and everyone!"

Ellery paused, remembering the scene in front of the El Paso jailhouse, so many months ago.

"And here's another kicker, she was in love with him, too – or so she said!" Ellery shook his head, continuing, "I'm still not sure if she really did fall for the Kid or if she was play-acting at the end. But she was sure convincing!"

"What!?" The listeners were completely caught up in the story, hanging on Ellery's words.

"Oh, yeah. When she turned him in, she got all misty-eyed and apologized to Curry. She told him right in front of us she didn't "intend to fall in love" with him!" Ellery imitated Grace's voice and exaggerated her inflections, giving her words a hint of melodrama. "She seemed all broken up at the time, but not too broken up to accept the ten thousand dollars!"

He laughed uproariously at Grace Turner's duplicity.

Kid was doing a slow burn under cover of his hat. It was bad enough thinking about how he had fallen for Grace's lies, that he had been stupid enough not to check out the valise for himself - that he'd actually thought she really cared for him. What a fool he'd been! But to be forced to listen to his humiliation being discussed by this group of strangers was getting to be a bit more than he could take! Meanwhile, the garrulous Marshall continued to hold the other passengers enthralled.

"How'd he get away?" asked the cowboy, eagerly.

"Well, I'll tell ya! A couple days later, somebody blew a great big hole right through the jail cell walls with dynamite and that was the last we saw of Kid Curry. Until now, that is!"

"So they were in on it together the whole time!" exclaimed the mustachioed man, the others nodding in agreement.

"That's naturally what we all thought, but that ain't the end of the story!" Ellery paused dramatically, leaving his audience hanging, literally on the edges of their seats. "A couple weeks later, a dapper young gent marched into the Marshall's office, sayin' he was Curry's lawyer. He brought a cashier's check for the reward money! He told us that Curry was trying to go straight, that he was NOT in on it with the Turner woman, and that he wanted to pay back the ten thousand dollars so's to keep his record clean."

"Probably got it from robbing a bank!" scoffed the businessman.

"Not according to this lawyer fellow! He swore up and down and six ways to Sunday that Curry and Heyes had tracked down Mrs. Turner and persuaded her to pay the money back. So I s'pose she must've had some feelings for him after all."

"How do you know the supposed lawyer wasn't Hannibal Heyes himself and they stole that money?" demanded the man with the mustache.

"Oh no, this guy couldn't have been Hannibal Heyes!" Sheriff Ellery insisted.

He began chuckling over the absurdity of the fastidious lawyer being mistaken for the dangerous and notorious outlaw mastermind!

"His name was Hotchkiss, and he was a skinny, citified guy - a real tinhorn! Wore a sissy-looking brown suit and a derby hat and these little gold spectacles. He used so many big words I pretty nearly needed a dictionary to keep up with the conversation! And he had a stack of papers and forms for Marshall Slater to sign. It was all very official. And before he would surrender that check to the bank, he insisted Slater telegraph the railroad what put up the reward AND the governor of Wyoming, and some sheriff name of Trevors that the lawyer said had a special interest in Heyes and Curry. Oh, it was all very legal and above-board, believe you me."

Kid smirked beneath his Stetson. For the first time since he had found himself looking down the barrel of Marshall Brett Ellery's six-gun, he felt a glimmer of hope. Heyes was waiting for him in Abilene! If anyone could get him out of this fix, his genius partner could do it…


	2. Chapter 2

Hannibal Heyes was leaning back comfortably in a straight-backed chair on the porch of the American House Hotel, long legs crossed at the ankles and propped up on the spindled railing. He was smoking a fine cigar, purchased with some of his recent earnings. Despite the gathering dusk, Heyes had a good view of the stage depot, where his partner would be arriving any moment. His initial thought when he'd first read Curry's telegram was that the Kid shouldn't be wasting money on a stage coach ticket, but he had soon softened his opinion. After all, Curry had lost the coin toss back in Red Rock and therefore had wound up taking the longer and more difficult delivery job, and with the less interesting destination. He himself had already had two extra days to enjoy the night life and poker playing Abilene had on offer. Heyes decided magnanimously he would treat Kid to a steak dinner that night to help make up for the disparity.

It was almost dark when the shout went up that the stagecoach was arriving. A small crowd gathered to greet its arrival. Heyes waited patiently for the passengers to disembark. The driver hopped down and opened up the door. The first to clamber out of the vehicle was a tiny old woman, no bigger than a child, but wizened and wrinkled. As the driver helped the woman from the coach and handed her off to a middle-aged man in the crowd whose exclamation of "Mother!" could be heard clearly across the street, Heyes shook his head and thought to himself, must be a pretty young lady in there, too, or there's no way the Kid wouldn't help that old granny climb out.

But as he watched, only male passengers appeared on the footboard one by one. First a young man in cowboy gear, then a middle-aged man in an expensive suit, maybe a banker or lawyer. After that another middle-aged man dressed less formally disembarked, maybe a shopkeeper. Heyes grinned when he recognized the next pair of legs to emerge from the stagecoach. But when they were followed by the rest of Curry, the grin froze on his face. The Kid's hands were bound behind his back! Uh-oh, thought Heyes, staying seated but staring intently, looks like Kid ran into someone who recognized him. Sure enough, after Curry awkwardly jumped down from the stage, unbalanced without the use of his arms, he was followed by a tall, blonde man sporting a tin star on his chest, who dropped lightly to the ground, holding a revolver to his partner's back. Heyes squinted at the lawman. If he recognized Kid, he probably knows me too, he said to himself. Heyes scrutinized the tall frame, the blonde hair, the nondescript features. He knew this guy! But _how_ did he know this guy….? He stood up and leaned casually against the turned porch post, affecting only a vague interest in the spectacle.

A general hubbub spread through the group of townspeople surrounding the stage coach when they realized there had been a prisoner inside. The driver seemed surprised as well, not being privy to whatever events had transpired within the coach as he had perched above them, driving the team of horses. Standing bound but not cowed amidst the growing crowd, Curry scanned the surrounding area. His keen eyes caught his partner's for a fleeting second. No one but Heyes would have noticed the subtle glint of recognition, the silent communication that was both a grim acknowledgment of the situation and a mute plea for rescue.

His returning glance also sent two messages: Don't worry, I'll figure something out.

And: Can't I ever leave you alone without you getting yourself into trouble?


	3. Chapter 3

As Ellery led Curry into the jailhouse, he scanned his surroundings. Two cells were already occupied. Both occupants were lying on their respective cots, each covered in a blanket. Ellery installed Curry in the vacant cell between them.

He flopped down on his cot and covered his face with his hat, listening as his door was slammed shut and locked, and then to the sound of heavy footsteps retreating down the hall.

The Marshal left the door between the office and the cell block open, so Curry could hear him instructing the deputy.

"Listen, Barton, I'm goin' to get some dinner. Don't you let ANYONE back there until I get back. That's Kid Curry, ya know."

Curry, once again beneath the cover of his hat, was wondering what move Heyes would make and how long it would take him to act. His reverie was interrupted by a feminine voice near his ear.

"Hiya, baby-face. Is it true you're Kid Curry?"

Curry lifted the hat from his face to gaze into a pair of grey eyes staring at him from the cell adjacent to his. The eyes, fringed by thick lashes and heavily lined with black eye make-up, belonged to a woman about ten years older than himself. She was a handsome woman, but with a hard, dangerous air about her. Not his usual type, but nonetheless intriguing.

He swept his eyes over her appraisingly. She slouched on her cot, leaning against the bars, gazing at him almost languidly. She was dressed in a low-cut watered silk evening dress in midnight blue, expensive-looking, but a little too tight to be considered quite respectable. Her raven hair was piled onto her head in an elaborate coiffure, with a few tendrils framing her face. Not a working girl, he speculated to himself, but not exactly the minister's wife. The baubles dangling from her lobes looked like the genuine article and several rings sparkled on her slender, manicured fingers.

"Ma-am," he answered laconically, nodding and touching his hat politely.

She took the lack of denial as an affirmative, and sidled a little closer to the bars of the shared cell wall.

"Oh, how the mighty have fallen," she murmured with just a hint of irony and a slight promise of seduction in her voice.

Curry didn't feel much like talking, but he didn't mind looking. She was certainly a better sight - and smell - than the drunken old man to his other side.

"Not much of a talker, are ya, Kid?" she asked. "I can call you Kid, can't I?"

"Yes, ma'am," he answered politely. "And what should I call you?"

"Grace, "she replied. "Grace Navarro."

Curry's poker face came in handy. Not another Grace, he was thinking to himself, wondering what the odds were and if this unlikely coincidence was a portent of further disaster. But on the outside, he smiled charmingly and nodded again.

"Grace. What are you in here for?"

"MURDER!" hollered the deputy from the desk in front. "Better watch out for that she-devil, Curry!"

The Kid's eyebrows lifted questioningly.

"Self defense!" she tossed back, loud enough for the deputy to hear, then continued in a much lower voice,

"It was him or me, and I sure as hell wasn't letting it be me."

Once again, Curry's practiced poker face masked his inner thoughts. He immediately recalled Blanche DuBois, how her beautiful exterior had concealed a cruel and merciless nature. It had sure been satisfying - as well as lucrative - bringing her to justice. Was this Grace just as evil as Blanche had been, or could she be telling the truth?

"A man like you can surely understand that," Grace practically purred. Was she trying to be seductive or just keeping her voice low so the deputy wouldn't overhear?

"Haven't you and Heyes ever killed in self-defense?"

Curry didn't answer, his thoughts straying to a dusty street in Matherville and a crimson stain spreading across a white ruffled shirt…

"Is he here?" she hissed through the bars.

"What? Who?" Curry asked, startled from his reverie, his thoughts still on Danny Bilson.

"Hannibal Heyes," she answered, rolling her eyes. "Ya know, everyone says he's the brains of the outfit, but I figured you were a little more than just a fast draw and a pretty face…"

"What's it to you?" he asked her, not trying to hide the suspicion from his voice.

"He'll get you out. That's what he'll do, right? If he's here?"

"Shaddup back there!" yelled Barton.

Before either prisoner could respond, the sound of another voice came from the front offices. It was a woman's voice, but the words were unintelligible. Then the deputy spoke, louder and more clearly,

"Thanks, Mrs. Gavin. You got the message then that we have three prisoners now?"

Her voice again, then his answer,

"No, no, I'll bring it back. It ain't just Miss Navarro and Old Jenks now. We got us a dangerous outlaw back there," he bragged.

In a few moments, Deputy Barton appeared in the hallway leading to the cells.

"Back up," he commanded. "Step to the back of the cell if you wanna eat."

Jenks did not wake. Grace and the Kid obligingly stood up and retreated from the front of their cells. Barton bent to slide three metal trays, each holding a spoon and a dish covered with a cloth napkin through the opening beneath the three prisoners' cell doors. After the deputy retreated back into the office area, Curry lifted up his napkin. Underneath was a folded up piece of paper that he opened and scanned eagerly.

Curry heard Grace chuckling to herself. "So he is here," she murmured softly, smiling slightly.

The note, in his partner's unmistakable block letter printing read, "Ask to speak to your lawyer."

Curry had figured Heyes might use the same lawyer disguise that had worked so well in El Paso, but he couldn't make a move until he was sure.

After the prisoners had eaten, Curry still felt hungry, even though he had eaten his own stew and bread along with both Grace's and the drunken Jenks's hunks of bread, Grace not wanting hers and Jenks never waking up. He would have eaten Jenks's stew as well, but he couldn't quite reach it.

It was the Marshal who came back to collect the trays and dishes. Curry put on his most polite and innocent expression and ventured,

"Marshal Ellery, you remember my lawyer, Wendell Hotchkiss? The one that paid back the reward money in El Paso?"

"Sure, I recall Hotchkiss," drawled Ellery. "What about him? You actually think he's got a snowball's chance in hell to get you outta this? You're wanted dead or alive, Curry."

Ellery shook his head and smiled smugly.

"So I heard," replied the prisoner dryly. "I'm still entitled to see my lawyer, ain't I? Well, he happens to be here in Abilene. I was gonna meet him here. And I wanna see him. Can you get a message to him?"

"Well, he musta heard you was here by now," replied the Marshal. "Word is all over town. If he wants to see you, he'll come here."

Ellery turned on his heel and stalked out, carrying the stack of trays piled with bowls and spoons.

"He's an asshole," commented Grace quietly. Then she brightened and asked,

"Say, think your _lawyer_ could help me out?"

"Maybe," answered the Kid, not sure if she suspected the true identity of his "lawyer" or not.


	4. Chapter 4

Curry scowled to himself. When was Heyes gonna show up?

Just then he heard his partner's voice from the front office area. He was talking in his "back east educated gentleman" accent that he'd used in various con-jobs, kind of milque-toasty, pronouncing every syllable fastidiously.

"Good day, gentlemen. I'm Mr. Jedediah Curry's attorney, Wendell Hotchkiss, Esquire," he was saying. "I understand you have my client incarcerated here. I wish to confer with him."

Curry waited impatiently while the introductions, the preliminaries, and finally what must have been a search for weapons on "Hotchkiss's" person took place, then finally he heard two sets of footsteps approaching down the hall.

Curry kept his poker face firmly in place but his eyes danced as "Hotchkiss" approached the cell.

Heyes had done it again! When he got up to one of his disguises he somehow embodied the character. His voice sounded different, his walk was different, even his mannerisms were different. But all he'd done was put on his brown suit and derby and a pair of spectacles. And it looked like he'd added some padding to his torso, so although he was still slim for the most part, he sported a little pot belly, adding to the illusion of a man incapable of any sort of physical prowess whatsoever. No one would ever suspect he was really the former leader of a formidable band of outlaws.

Except maybe Grace Navarro, that is.

"It's him!" she hissed through the bars. "It's Heyes!"

Kid threw her a quick glare, drilling her with icy blue eyes that commanded her to keep her mouth shut. Then he turned and exclaimed loudly,

"Mr. Hotchkiss! I'm so glad to see you!"

"Five minutes," growled Ellery as he unlocked the cell, then closed it and relocked it again with Heyes inside. To everyone's relief, he returned to the office portion of the jailhouse and shut the adjoining door.

Seeing he had an audience, Heyes stayed in character.

"Mr. Curry, so I see you've managed to get yourself arrested again," he began with a tone of disapproval.

"You can cut the act, Heyes. Although it's a good one. But I'd recognize those big brown eyes anywhere," purred Grace, from the adjoining cell.

"Hotchkiss" turned to stare at the woman with no sign of recognition. He replied, still using the lawyer's voice,

"I beg your pardon, my good woman, but I…."

"It's been ten, eleven years," she interrupted, "and a man like you must have been with more working girls than you can count, so I don't expect you to remember me. But a gal don't forget when she's spent the night with Hannibal Heyes." Her voice seemed to caress each syllable as she pronounced the name.

"Of course, it was before you got famous. You were so young, and so … enthusiastic." Grace licked her painted lips. "You weren't even riding with the Kid here yet. You were with the Plummer Gang. I was working in the Cactus Rose, down Laramie way, where you and the boys used to hoorah on occasion…"

"Excuse me for interruptin' this little trip down Memory Lane," interjected Curry, "but this is _my_ lawyer and we only got five minutes and you're usin' it all up!'

Heyes ignored his partner and asked the woman, "What are you in for, Miss…?"

"Mrs," she corrected, "Mrs. Grace Navarro."

She swallowed, then continued, "I killed my husband - but it was in self-defense."

Just then the sound of footsteps approached. Curry sighed in exasperation. Heyes was now shaking Grace Navarro's hand through the bars. Staring into her eyes, he addressed the Marshal as he unlocked the padlock on the cell door.

"Marshal Ellery? I'm afraid there's nothing I can do for Mr. Curry until he's extradited to Wyoming, but I'm taking on Mrs. Navarro's case."

Grace Navarro smiled, still clasping Heyes's hand and gazing into his eyes. The Kid sat down on his cot heavily, hoping this was part of some elaborate Hannibal Heyes Plan and that he had not just been abandoned in favor of a pretty face and a curvaceous figure.

"Well, I'm goin' home for the night and leavin' Barton in charge. You'll have to come back in the morning if you want to talk to her," pronounced Ellery.

"I'll be back, bright and early," Heyes responded, releasing Grace's hand at last and turning to leave without a second glance at his partner.

When they were alone again, except for Jenks, still snoring softly in the adjacent cell, Grace turned to Curry.

"Here," she said, stretching out her hand, "Your partner wanted me to give you this."

Curry turned to take the small object from her.

It was a lock-pick.


	5. Chapter 5

Later that evening, at the Silver Spur Saloon, Joshua Smith took his seat at the poker table he'd become accustomed to frequenting the last few nights. He'd made the acquaintance of several of the regulars and he had managed to keep it friendly, winning just enough to come out ahead, but not too much as to alienate the locals. As he sat down, one of the men, Bill Stokes, the owner of the local mercantile, asked him eagerly,

"Did you hear the news? Brett Ellery brought in Kid Curry today! That'll put Abilene on the map! Our Marshal will be famous!"

"Yeah, maybe we'll get as famous as the first Abilene, the one in Kansas! Did you know they had a real famous marshal?" added Stu, an older, bald-pated fellow who worked at one of the town's livery stables.

"Yeah – for one whole year, Stu!" admonished a third player, a brash young man who worked as a teller at the Abilene Bank, laughing sardonically.

"Beg your pardon, gentlemen, but are you by any chance referring to Wild Bill Hickock?" Heyes asked innocently. Of course he'd heard the story before, but didn't see any harm in encouraging his fellow card players to open up to him. His budding friendship with these men might even come in handy later.

"Yessir, Wild Bill Hickock was marshal of Abilene, Kansas back in '71," answered Stu.

"Yeah, but he got himself fired the same year after he shot his own deputy dead during a shootout!" blurted the young bank teller.

Everyone at the table laughed uproariously as though this were the funniest joke they'd heard in a long time.

"And then he got his own self shot dead five years later," added another fellow, this one a large, burly carpenter, who spent his days on one of the many construction crews that were erecting new buildings in the young, growing town as fast as folks could buy up the lots, and spent his nights in the Silver Spur drinking beer and playing cars. Between guffaws he amended, "but that was up in Deadwood. Dakota Territory. Ever been up that way, Smith?"

"Oh, once or twice," "Smith" answered vaguely, taking a sip of beer.

"So the story is," said Stokes, steering the conversation back to the famous outlaw currently cooling his heels in the local jailhouse, "they're bringing in the town's photographer to make a pitcher of Kid Curry and send it off to Wyoming by courier." He chuckled to himself. "Evidently, folks keep sending for the authorities to identify Heyes or Curry, and it turns out it ain't them. They're getting' sick of those wild goose chases!" He paused, a light dawning on his face and continued, "Say, Smith. Didn't you say you and your partner are looking for work? Didn't you tell us the other night you just finished a delivery job? This might be right up your alley."

"Hey, Smith, did that partner of yours ever show up?" asked Stu.

"Oh, yeah," Heyes answered. "He was tired, though. Turned in early."

"Where'd ya say you were stayin' agin? Weren't it the American House Hotel?" asked Stu, with merriment in his eyes.

Hans, the big carpenter, started snickering uncontrollably. All the players behaved as if they were in on some secret joke. They exchanged gleeful glances. Finally, Stu cried out,

"Hope he don't snore!"

Then all the card players began to laugh even harder than they had earlier.

"Uh…I seem to be missing the joke," said Heyes, glancing around at their mirth.

Matthews, the bank teller, was the first to straighten up. As the others continued to laugh, he replied, "Oh, we're just joshing you, Josh! That was the other Abilene, too. They got a hotel with the same name. Fact is, our town AND that hotel are named after the Kansas ones. Anyway, it happened the same year Hickock was marshal there. The outlaw John Wesley Hardin was stayin' at the American House. Evidently the fellow in the hotel room next door to his was snorin' to beat the band. Hardin couldn't sleep for the noise, so he shot him - right through the wall - dead!"

"I suppose I should be encouraged that Abilene, Texas is not quite as lively as her namesake," observed Heyes dryly. "And I've heard Hardin is now serving time in Huntsville." Then he changed the subject, "What about this other prisoner, this Navarro woman?"

"Oh, Mrs. Navarro! She's a real 'Black Widow' – murdered her husband. He owns – er – owned - this here saloon _and_ the hotel attached," answered Stokes.

"Did he now… So it was murder, was it?"

"Well, that's what everyone's saying," Stu said. The others nodded their heads in agreement.

"Come on, boys!" Hans urged, "Are we gonna jaw all night like a bunch of old biddies or are we gonna play poker? Deal, Matthews!"

As the play commenced, Heyes kept one part of his mind on the cards, but the other was mapping out his course of action…. This was gonna be interesting. And maybe even fun…

Author's Note: Sorry so long between Chapters 4 &amp; 5\. I got busy in Real Life - AND I found out I mixed up my Abilenes. Rather than throw out this chapter, I just revised it a bit. Seems Abilene, Kansas was a heck of a lot more colorful than Abilene, Texas... But I suppose HH and KC will manage to liven things up...


	6. Chapter 6

The next morning, as promised, Wendell Hotchkiss, Esquire, showed up at the jailhouse bright and early. This time he was there to see Grace Navarro. After the requisite pat-down, he was escorted to her cell. Curry feigned sleep, hat over his face. He was starting to think that he was getting a little too used to this position…

As the Marshal's footsteps receded, Heyes in Hotchkiss guise began his interview.

"Alright, Mrs. Navarro. Can you tell me exactly what happened the night your husband died?" he asked.

"Yes, but does _he_ have to listen?" Grace asked, gesturing towards the Kid, stretched out on his cot, long legs hanging slightly over the edge.

"Oh, I assure you, Mr. Curry can sleep through anything," lied Heyes.

"Huh," was the skeptical response, one delicately shaped eyebrow arching skyward. But then Grace took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and began the story.

"It's true I killed my husband," she admitted, "but I swear to you, if I hadn't, I wouldn't be standing here talking to you today."

"So you're telling me it was self defense," asked Heyes. The woman nodded, her eyes looking steadily into his.

"Let's start from the beginning," suggested Heyes. "Would you say you and the late Mr. Navarro were happily married?"

"Hah," she scoffed, then softened. "We started out that way. Or at least I always thought we were..."

"How long were you married?"

"Five years. He and his brother Clark showed up here one winter, and I suppose you'd say Frank swept me off my feet. He was so handsome and charming and worldly. I fell for him hard. But after we married, I started to suspect he wasn't so much interested in my charms as in my property."

She paused, looking for a moment into the middle distance, A tiny smile appeared on her lips but didn't linger. She inhaled as if to gather her breath, then continued her account,

"But at the time I was still relatively young, and I suppose not quite as jaded as I am now. I'd certainly lost the starry-eyed innocence of youth a long time before that. I first started working at the Cactus Rose when I was only sixteen years old, but even then I knew I wanted something more. So I saved up my money, as much as I could. It wasn't easy, either! Folks don't know how hard women in my former, er, _profession_ have to work – and the things we have to put up with! I could tell you stories that would make your hair curl!"

There was a slight movement on the cot in the adjacent cell. Heyes' face betrayed nothing, but he thought to himself, Your hair's curly already, Kid. Quitcher eavesdropping!

"Go on," he urged Mrs. Navarro, his voice a gentle murmur.

"Well, I got a bit side-tracked along the way. But it turned out to be a good thing, because it got me out of that one-horse town in Wyoming. A fella from Abilene came in to the Rose, a cattle rancher – rich, too - and he took a fancy to me. He asked me to come here with him. I thought I'd finally hit it lucky. But then it turned out he was already married and he just wanted to keep me here in town, on the side, so to speak. He said he'd set me up in a nice little house and pay all my expenses. But where was the profit in _that_ deal? So I got a job here, at the Silver Spur, and I kept on saving my money, but it was taking so long! So I got this idea. You see, over the years, I watched a hell of a lot of card games, and I picked up a few tricks – like how to tell when a player is bluffing and how to sort of "keep track" of the cards that have already been played. _And_ to stay sober when all the other players are drinking."

The lawyer nodded sagely, the outlaw card genius inside the guise in total agreement.

"So one night, when there was a big game on, I took my whole stake and entered the game. And I doubled it in one night," she said proudly. "And I had enough to buy the saloon. And it did so well that three years later I bought the hotel, too. I felt like all those years finally paid off. I was finally making something of myself!" She paused, sighed again.

"That's when Frank showed up. As you no doubt are familiar with Texas property laws, after we married, the hotel and saloon remained in my sole ownership - but I soon discovered it was now his legal role, as my husband, my "supporter," to control the management."

Hotchkiss/Heyes interjected, being quite familiar with the statute passed in 1840, granting such rights to women in Texas, as he had stayed up very late in his hotel room the night before reading all about it from the law books he had managed to gather, "But any profits earned from your business interests subsequent to your marriage would be jointly owned, by the two of you." The Texas community property laws were better than some, he thought to himself, but still left Texas wives in subordination to their husbands.

"Right," she concurred. "Frank left the day-to-day management to me, but he took charge of the books - and our finances. He brought his brother Clark in to help him, said he had experience. Turns out Clark's experience was in _cooking_ the books – but I didn't figure that out until recently."

Heyes made a mental note to follow up on Clark Navarro's "books-cooking," but did not want to interrupt Grace's momentum as the story poured out.

"I was a good wife. I didn't complain when he dallied with the gals who worked for us. After all, he's a man. That's what they do. So I did what all good wives do: pretended not to notice. But when I found that little red-headed b -" Grace struggled with herself to regain her composure before continuing her monologue,

"When I found Frank in _my_ room, in _my_ bed with one of _my_ girls, what did he expect? How could I turn a blind eye to that?! I ordered her out of the room and slapped him full across the face. Didn't I have that right?" she demanded.

"What did Frank do?" asked Heyes, ignoring her question.

"He was furious! He began to curse me and strike me. It wasn't the first time he beat me, but this time he was vicious. I fought back, but he was so much bigger than me, what chance did I stand?"

Heyes interrupted. "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Navarro, but didn't all this happen less than a week ago? I don't see any bruises on your person."

"Hah. Frank always knew to put the bruises where they don't show. Ya wanna see…?" she asked coyly, reaching behind her back as if unhook her bodice.

The Kid shifted ever so slightly on his bunk. Heyes shot him a glare then reached out to stop Grace.

"Not here. Haven't you been administered to by a doctor?"

Grace laughed again, harshly. "Not even when they found me unconscious. When I asked to see the doc for my head, Ellery just scoffed that I had a hangover and I'd get over it."

"You were unconscious? How did that happen?"

"Frank pushed me back on the bed. Hard. I hit my head on the bedstead. Here, feel." She took his hand and guided his fingers beneath the piles of curls. Heyes felt dried, crusted blood and a half-healed, still-gaping cut about an inch and a half long.

"You should have had stitches in this," he scolded.

"Yeah, well, try tellin' that to Ellery."

"Please continue," Heyes instructed.

"I must have been knocked out cold for a few seconds. When I came to, Frank was holding a pillow over my face. I couldn't breathe. I could hear the bastard laughing. I was desperate, struggling to get out – to get air. I clawed at his face. I tried to kick, but he was pinning my legs with his body. I hit him wherever I could reach but he just kept laughing at me. I was getting weaker and weaker. You have to understand – he was choking the life right out of me! But then I remembered the derringer he always kept in his vest pocket. All of a sudden it was like I got this burst of energy! I managed to grab the gun and aimed it toward his chest and squeezed the trigger... And that's all I remember until I woke up here. In this cell. And they told me I was going to hang for murdering Frank. That was four days ago."


	7. Chapter 7

By the time Heyes concluded the interview with his new client, he was convinced the woman was innocent. He had planned to use her only as part of his elaborate plan – as a simple diversion as well as an excuse to frequent the jail. But now he suspected he was very close to solving the murder of Frank Navarro – and he also believed that if he didn't get the wrongly accused widow acquitted, no one would. She would hang by her pretty little neck and the real murderer would get away with it.

Not your problem, he told himself cynically. But despite his inner counsel and his natural antipathy toward doing good deeds, as he left the cell, Heyes found himself confronting the marshal.

"Marshal Ellery, my client needs to see the doctor."

"Why? What's wrong with her?"

"That is of a personal nature and no concern of yours."

"Well, I'd say it's a mighty big concern of mine because I'm the law in this town and she's a dangerous murderess. But I'm a merciful man. If you really think she needs doctorin', I'll call the doc over."

"I must insist that Mrs. Navarro be seen in the privacy of the doctor's office." He pronounced the word 'privacy' with a short i, the way he'd heard Englishmen and swells do. "And another matter, as long as I'm here. I intend to take possession of Mr. Curry's personal belongings. He won't be needing them where he's going and as his attorney and legal proxy, it is my responsibility to keep them safe until his eventual release."

Ellery looked annoyed. "You're gonna keep Curry's stuff while he sits in prison for twenty years?"

"Actually, I expect I will be able to argue successfully for a lesser sentence," he replied haughtily, "but to answer your query, yes, I intend to safeguard Mr. Curry's possessions until he has served his time. I shall sign any release you might require."

Ellery yanked open a desk drawer and withdrew a familiar worn leather gunbelt, a shiny Colt revolver, and a pair of battered saddle bags.

As Heyes signed the release forms, he could almost feel Ellery's regret at losing these valuable souvenirs. He would have been able to sell them for a tidy sum, or maybe hang onto them and charge a fee just for folks to take a peek.

"I shall make arrangements for the doctor visit," he announced officiously, before pivoting smartly on his heel and exiting the marshal's office.


	8. Chapter 8

About 30 minutes later, "Hotchkiss" emerged from the Doctor's clinic, just down the road from the jailhouse. Upon his exit, he strolled leisurely along the Main Street, as if taking in the morning air. He passed by the Mercantile, where Bill Stokes was busily sweeping the boardwalk, the Telegraph Office, and the First Bank of Abilene, where he narrowly escaped a collision with the young bank teller, Matthews, who was rushing into the building, obviously late to work.

"Watch where you're going, Mister!" shouted Matthews, not recognizing his poker-playing pal, Joshua Smith.

Heyes smiled to himself and continued his stroll. Toward the end of the street he came to what he was seeking, a small storefront with a hand-lettered sign reading, "Nelson &amp; Son's Photography." In the window, against a deep crimson velvet drapery, several sepia-toned portraits were displayed of unsmiling individuals, couples, and even families dressed in their Sunday finest. As he stood looking at the window, two men emerged, the younger one carrying an armload of bulky equipment. Must be the Son, thought Heyes. The older one had a luxurious mustache and held a flat box carefully in both hands. And that must be Nelson, he decided to himself. Nelson sensed a potential customer in the well-dressed, bespectacled gent perusing his shop window display.

"We shall be back shortly if you are interested in getting your portrait made, Sir," the elder Nelson promised. "We're on official business at present."

"We're going to the jail to photograph the outlaw Kid Curry," gushed the younger Nelson with obvious excitement.

"Hush, now, Will, "scolded the father. "We don't want it spread all over town."

The gentleman in the natty brown suit touched his derby hat politely and turned to retrace his steps to the American House Hotel. About fifteen minutes later, a handsome young man dressed in a navy blue shirt and tan leather vest, gunbelt slung low on slim hips, buff-colored pants tucked into black boots, and a somewhat battered black hat trimmed in silver ornaments emerged from the hotel and made a beeline to the photographers' shop.

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Later that afternoon, Wendell Hotchkiss returned to the jailhouse to escort Mrs. Navarro to the doctor's office. Right before he reached her cell, as Marshal Ellery busied himself, first sorting through the large ring of keys, then unlocking the heavy padlock on her cell door, he slid his hand beneath his vest, into what appeared to be a soft belly, but which Kid knew was some kind of padding. Heyes had always been very adept at sleight of hand, and he practiced a lot with playing cards and other things, so it didn't surprise his partner that neither Grace nor Ellery noticed him remove a metal object and pass it through the bars to him. Curry quickly slid it beneath his mattress, recognizing by touch alone the cylinder from his Colt. So that's how we're gonna play it, he grinned to himself. And here he'd thought the pot belly was for authenticity, when in fact his partner'd had a much more pragmatic reason for sporting it.

"Hotchkiss" lagged behind, bending down to rub a non-existent spot from the toe of his shoe with a handkerchief as Ellery made a big show of escorting the dangerous Mrs. Navarro down the hallway toward the front of the building.

"Heyes we got trouble," Curry whispered to his partner. "They sent a photographer over here this morning and he made a picture of me. They're gonna send it by courier to Wyoming to confirm my identity. That means even after you bust me out they'll know what I look like."

"Don't worry, Kid," Heyes whispered back. "I happen to know the courier and that photo will never make it to Cheyenne. In fact, you know him, too."

"Who?"

"His name is Joshua Smith." Heyes winked and grinned devilishly, his dimples showing in his cheeks.

Curry shook his head in silent admiration as Heyes's impish grin swiftly transformed back into Hotchkiss's serious scowl and he scuttled down the hallway to catch up to Ellery and Grace.

Curry lay back on his cot, feeling the lump of the cylinder beneath his shoulder blades with contentment.


	9. Chapter 9

Every day for the next several days, "Hotchkiss" visited the jail to confer with his client. And with every visit, another piece of the Kid's precious Colt was smuggled to him via the false lawyer's false belly. Some of the pieces were woefully tiny, in Curry's opinion. He waited until everyone else was asleep before reassembling the gun piece by piece under cover of darkness – he didn't need light to do it, in fact, could've done it blindfolded – but he was getting impatient. He was beginning to suspect his partner was deliberately dragging out this whole process. In his opinion, if Heyes hadn't been so stingy with the pieces, he could have had the complete gun by now and they'd both be long gone! Curry scowled, mulling over the possibilities. Could Heyes be developing feelings for Grace…? Or did he actually think he was gonna stand up in a court of law in that lawyer get-up and argue her case…? It was frustrating not to be able to talk to him about it, but they could only risk short, whispered conversations or an occasional terse note scrawled on a scrap of paper and slipped through the bars surreptitiously.

The Kid was reminded of a book Heyes had read aloud to him on the trail not long ago, chapter by chapter as they relaxed near the campfire. It was the latest book by that Mark Twain fellow, the same one that wrote about fingerprints and whom Kid had suspected of using an alias. Mark Twain, right…Curry shook his head and rolled his eyes just thinking about that ridiculous name. This new book was all about two boys named Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer – boys who were in another book, too, that Curry remembered reading a long time ago. The first book had mostly been about Tom Sawyer, but this one was about the other fella, Huck Finn, and how he'd sailed down the Mississippi River on a raft with a run-away slave and all their adventures together. It was a real good book, but there were some nasty fellows in it. When they got to the part about the Duke and the King, Curry had told Heyes he'd sure like to "flatten" those two crafty grifters, who were nothing like his own notion of an honorable conman – decent men like Soapy and Silky. But the part that he was remembering now came toward the end. Jim, the runaway slave, had been captured and was being held in a makeshift jail cell and Tom Sawyer showed up to help Huck bust him out. But Tom made the whole escape so unnecessarily complicated and convoluted that Kid lost his patience entirely. Heyes had thought the episode was funny, but Kid was incensed. He declared he wanted to flatten Tom Sawyer, even if he was just a kid. Heyes thought Kid wanting to flatten Tom Sawyer was even more hilarious. He insisted that his partner did not understand the finer points of satire and asked pointedly how could he flatten a fictional character anyway, boy or man? That's when Curry had suggested even more pointedly that he might flatten Heyes instead and they ended up putting the book away for a time. Right now, Heyes was reminding the Kid a little of that exasperating Tom Sawyer. And instead of relating to Huck Finn, as he'd done before, Curry was feeling a lot like poor old Jim.

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One day, Heyes managed to whisper to Kid that everyone thought Joshua Smith was on his way to deliver the damning photograph of the Kid to the Wyoming authorities. Kid wouldn't learn the details until much later, but "Smith" had told just about everyone in town about his delivery job, bid his new friends farewell, and checked out of the first room he'd rented in the hotel. (Hotchkiss had rented a room that happened to be adjacent, with a convenient connecting door. Locked, of course, or so everyone who worked in the hotel thought.) Then he picked up his horse from Stu at the livery stable and rode out of town. A few hours later, no one at the other livery stable across town recognized the horse that Wendell Hotchkiss, a hard-working man returning from a rare but well-deserved recreational ride, brought in to be boarded. Meanwhile, the damning photograph had been burned to ashes, much like the one Clementine Hale had once used against the former outlaw leaders in the past.

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Another day, with brown eyes dancing impishly, he shared the news with Kid that "somehow" the telegram sent to Wyoming conveyed the misinformation that the captured outlaw Kid Curry was being held in Abilene, Kansas, not Abilene, Texas. (Just in case they decided not to wait for the photograph to show…)

Meanwhile, Heyes seemed to be having a gay old time not only playing lawyer, but acting as a detective, figuring out what had really happened the night Navarro had met his untimely demise. But the Kid wouldn't hear about the extensive investigations and interrogations his partner had been conducting until after everything was all over.


	10. Chapter 10

"So, Deputy Barton, I'm told you were the first lawman on the scene of the Navarro killing. Could you please tell me what you saw when you arrived?"

Hotchkiss had descended upon the deputy as he was eating his breakfast in a little café across the street from the jailhouse. The young man swallowed a mouthful of flapjacks, washed it down with a swig of coffee, and answered the lawyer, speaking earnestly and a bit self-importantly,

"I walked into the room, and I saw Navarro lying on the floor in a pool of blood. It was an awful lot of blood. Too much blood. I knew he was a goner before I even checked him."

"So he had been shot?" Heyes prompted,

"Well, yeah," answered the deputy, as if that point was too obvious to mention. "Three times. Two were straight through, but one was still in 'im."

"And was anyone else in the room?"

Mrs. Navarro was passed out drunk as a skunk on the bed, and she was still holding the gun in her hand."

"And you knew she was drunk because…?"

"Well, everyone knows she's a drinker. And I could smell it all over her, too."

"What else did you notice in the room?"

"Else…?"

"Was the room neat or messy? Were there signs of a struggle?"

"Signs of a struggle?"

Heyes hid his impatience behind a well-practiced poker face. "Any furniture overturned, broken glass, bedclothes in disarray?"

"Oh, there was nothin' like that. The bed was unmade, but everything else looked fine. Except for all the blood."

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It was soon after that conversation that Heyes decided it was time to visit the scene of the crime.

"That nosy lawyer is up in the Navarros' room, Mr. Navarro," a young girl dressed in maid's plain dress and pinafore apron whispered to the man with the pencil-thin mustache seated at a corner table in the dining room of the Abilene House. "I mean, the other Navarros. I mean, your – "

"I know what you mean, you simpleton," he snapped at her. "There's nothing for him to see there."

At that exact moment, Heyes was making the same observation. At least there was nothing to see at first glance. The room had been scrubbed clean, the bed stripped down to the straw tick. There was no sign of any pillows or blankets. Heyes got down on all fours and examined the floorboards closely, then pulled a white glove from his pocket and tugged it onto his right hand. He carefully ran his fingers along the ornate brass bedstead, pausing frequently to peer at the white cloth closely. After his fourth swipe, he was rewarded with a few black curly hairs and the unmistakable rust-red smear of dried blood on the end of his gloved fingertips. Heyes carefully removed the glove and wrapped it in a handkerchief which he tucked into his vest pocket.

Then he rose to his feet and looked about the room. Something wasn't right, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

He tried to visualize the struggle. So the bed is over here, he thought, which means that when Grace entered the room, then Navarro would have been right here… He began to examine the opposite wall of the room closely. The two bullets that went straight through should have been….. But there was no sign of any bullet holes in the wall. He looked around the room again and something caught his eye amidst the paisley design of the rug.

He knelt down and looked more closely, then ran his fingers over the pile. There was a very palpable dent. A swift examination revealed three more, forming the shape of a large rectangle. Heyes rose to his feet, his expression changing as the realization came to him. The bed hadn't been over there; someone had moved it! His keen eyes moved over to the opposite wall and began to scan its surface. He stepped closer and ran his fingers along the floral wallpaper. There! He could feel a slight divot. He peered closely at the spot in the dimness, but it was hard to see anything amongst the busy pattern. Late afternoon sunlight streamed through the window, but this side of the room was in shadow.

Heyes glanced around for a lamp to light, but there was none to be seen. He pulled a box of matches from his vest pocket and struck one against the sole of his boot, then cupped it with his other hand and peered at the divot. Upon close inspection, he could see the edges where a tiny patch of wallpaper had been carefully glued onto the wall, the design of the flowers and leaves painstakingly lined up so only a very thorough observation would reveal them. He shook the match to douse the flame before it burned his fingers. Just as he reached for another match in order to find the second bullet hole, the little maidservant who had let him into the room made a small noise from the doorway. He turned to see her hovering there.

"If you're through, Mr. Hotchkiss," she began in a timid voice…

"Not quite yet. Sally was it?"

"Yes sir."

"Sally, were you working the night of the, uh, the night Mr. Navarro died?"

"Yes sir. I work every night, sir," she answered.

"Has anything in this room been disturbed since that night?"

"No sir," Sally squeaked, her eyes darting about the room. "Just cleaned, sir. We – I - cleaned up the blood, sir. From Mr. Navarro, sir. It was an.."

"Awful lot of blood," he said, in unison with her. "Yes, Sally, so I've heard."

And then it hit him. No lamp. How could you have a hotel room without a lamp? Although it was daylight now, it was already getting difficult to see details. At night this room would be almost pitch black. The lamp must have overturned and broken in the struggle, he surmised. And after "they" – whoever "they" was – cleaned up the broken pieces, they didn't think to replace it with a different lamp. Or maybe "they" decided it would be better not to replace the lamp because it would be too easy to find the spots where, sometime later, the bullets must have been dug out of the wall and the wallpaper patched. "They" had also rearranged the room, so anyone who thought to search for bullet holes would be looking in the wrong wall.

"Thank you, Sally. I've seen all I need to see."

The girl curtsied and waited for him to leave. After he passed by her, he turned back and asked one last question.

"Sally?" he asked, "Who's been in charge since Mr. Navarro passed on and Mrs. Navarro has been in jail?"

"In charge, sir?" she asked timorously.

"Who's been giving the orders, running the hotel, all that?" he clarified.

"Oh, that would be Mr. Clark, sir," she answered. Mr. Frank's brother."

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Later that same day, Kid was again feigning sleep while his partner interviewed Grace.

"But I told you everything already!" she exclaimed in exasperation. Grace was now clad in a forest green day dress, the color deep and rich, but the cut much more modest and ladylike than what she had been wearing when she was arrested. She had been allowed the luxury of a bath at the doctor's office and her "lawyer" had arranged for several changes of clothing to be delivered to the jailhouse, along with some personal comforts: a pillow, a featherbed, a quilt, hairbrush and comb, a washstand with ewer and basin, some towels, even her toiletry items. He had also hung a blanket from the bars between hers and Curry's cells, again for the short-i privacy he insisted on, so now Curry could hear them, but not see them. This screen also provided Heyes the opportunity to hold longer conversations with the Kid through the blanket, unseen by the marshal or the deputy.

Not that they did him much good, Curry thought sourly. When he had groused to Heyes after the upgrades to Mrs. Navarro's cell, asking when was _his_ featherbed gonna show up, Heyes had simply ignored him. Then he had asked when was he gonna give him the rest of the pieces of his gun so they could get the hell out of there, his partner had replied chidingly, "Kid, I'm surprised at you. You're always the one saying we should do good deeds."

"Well, then I'm surprised at you, cuz you're the one always sayin' we shouldn't!"

That had been the end of that discussion. Curry had accepted that his partner was determined to solve the case, but that didn't mean he had to like it. He just hoped he'd do it soon so's he could get out of jail before the Wyoming authorities showed up. He lay on his bunk and listened to the voices drifting through the woolen barrier.

"Mrs. Navarro," Heyes as Hotchkiss said patiently. "I understand you told me everything you remember about the events of your husband's death. But I need to be able to picture it. For example, what was your husband wearing?"

"His socks," she answered drily.

Heyes waited for her to continue, but when she didn't, he prompted, "And…?"

"That's it," was the reply. "I told you he was in my bed with that little tramp, didn't I?"

Heyes looked thoughtful. After a brief pause, he asked, "Can you describe the arrangement of the room – wait." He pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil from his satchel. "Better yet, can you make a sketch?"

Curry couldn't see the drawing, but as he listened to the description of where the door was and the bed and the wardrobe, he visualized it in his mind.

"Heyes," he hissed through the blanket.

"Not now, Kid. We're busy," came the response.

Curry rolled his eyes, then persisted, "Heyes, that wardrobe sounds like a perfect hidin' place. Maybe someone else was in the room."

On the other side of the blanket, Grace's and Heyes's eyes met. As if they were mirrored images, they both pronounced the same name at the same time: "Clark…?"


	11. Chapter 11

NOTE to Readers (If any such persons still exist...):

I just read a thread that ranted about fanfiction writers who post the beginnings of stories and then never finish them which reminded me of this poor orphan story, abandoned almost a year ago! I have been shamed into posting the rest of this story - but with a few disclaimers. The end is complete, but the middle is full of holes that I don't know how to fix. I blame it on Hannibal Heyes! Evidently, he wanted to play lawyer and took it upon himself to turn my "Kid Curry in Peril" story into a courtroom drama, starring the Silver-Tongued One himself. The only thing I really know about courtroom dramas has been gleaned from watching them on television. I hope you will forgive the holes and inconsistencies that follow...

During the trial, Hannibal Heyes was in his glory. He discovered the only really challenging aspect was maintaining the Hotchkiss persona: overly fastidious, snobbily intellectual, a bit of a sissy-pants. How much more fun this would be if he could just be himself, he thought as he was organizing his notes. "Hannibal Heyes, attorney at law," he murmured to himself, grinning. Hey, a guy can dream, can't he?

Heyes had painstakingly built his case, portraying Grace Navarro as a good-hearted woman, albeit a "soiled dove," who had been ill-treated by a cruel husband. He could feel the sympathies of the all-male jury leaning more and more her way, especially as Dr. Castle had delivered his testimony outlining Grace's injuries. The doctor was well-liked and very much respected in Abilene. Heyes had discovered the doc had saved the lives of more than one of the jurors, and in one case a beloved wife and precious baby boy, too. He also, through discreet questioning, had learned that more than one of the jurors, before marriage and Grace's subsequent "career change," had enjoyed the company of the defendant and still had a soft spot for the beautiful brunette. Now Heyes had Marshal Brett Ellery on the stand, and he was going for the jugular. The twelve men leaned forward to listen raptly.

"Mrs. Navarro sustained, and I quote from the medical report," Heyes-as-Hotchkiss pronounced importantly, holding up an official-looking document, "A two inch long laceration on the occipital portion (he pointed to the back of his own head to indicate occipital as he pronounced the unfamiliar word) of the skull necessitating eight stitches, one fractured and two bruised costae – that's ribs - and multiple contusions on her torso and thighs." He looked up from the report and adjusted his spectacles, his piercing brown eyes boring into the witness. "This woman was beaten. Viciously. Why did you not allow her the medical attention she requested?"

"We thought she was lyin'. Everyone knows she's a drinker," Ellery responded, shifting in his seat uncomfortably.

"And just how does "everyone" know that?"

"Well, everyone says it. Um…Navarro – Clark that is, not Frank – he's always tellin' everyone how his brother's wife is a real lush."

"That sounds like hearsay to me."

"Well, there was also an eye-witness."

"Eye witness?"

"Yes. It was one of them girls from the Silver Spur Saloon. She saw the whole thing."

"And just what did she see?"

"She said she was passin' by the Navarros' room and she heard Mrs. Navarro screamin' at her husband. She said she heard Frank talkin' to her in a gentle voice, tryin' to calm her down like. The door was open a crack so she peeked inside. Mrs. Navarro was wavin' a derringer around, threatenin' to kill Frank lessen he promised never to leave her. And he did. He promised. But she said she didn't believe him and shot him dead. Then she passed out in the bed. Drunk. That little gal came runnin' to get me, but I wasn't in the office, so Barton was the first on the scene."

"Again, this is hearsay, your Honor," Heyes pronounced. "Marshal Ellery, where is this saloon girl of whom you speak? Why isn't she herself being called to the stand to give her supposed eyewitness account?"

"I dunno. It was Nellie McSomething – that little Irish gal – nobody's seen her since that night. She musta left town or something."

"How convenient," snapped Heyes. He turned to the jury box and gave them all a significant look, a look that implied he and they were all in on something together, that they, the jurors, were the intellectual superiors looking down their noses at the inferior sheriff. Then he turned back to the judge and said quietly, "No further questions, Your Honor."


	12. Chapter 12

The next day, there was a big furor in town: A surprise witness! Her name was Nellie McNulty and according to the Prosecutor, she was the elusive maid who had overheard the altercation and witnessed the subsequent shooting.

The girl was young, less than twenty if she was a day. Her clothes looked very new and slightly ill-fitting. When she took the stand, her testimony was virtually word-for-word what Ellery had said the day before. She spoke stiffly, as if she were reciting lines in a grammar school theatrical production. Heyes jotted down a few notes, figuratively chomping at the bit to attack her weak testimony. Finally, it was the Defense's turn to cross-examine.

"Miss McNulty," began Hotchkiss/Heyes, "how fortunate for us that you have returned to Abilene. And just where have you been since the night of the murder?"

"Oh, yes sir, I was visiting my sick mother, sir. In Fort Worth, sir. I only just got back last night. On the stage. The late one. So I came to testify about Mrs. Navarro. On account of it being my civic duty and all like that... Sir."

"And how is she doing?"

"Who? Mrs. Navarro? How should I know?"

"No, Miss. Your mother. How is your mother doing?"

"Oh, she's fine."

"I thought you said she was sick."

"Well, she was sick. And then I visited her. And now she's fine. Again." The girl looked around nervously and smiled timidly.

"Objection!" cried the prosecutor. "With all due respect, what does the health of Miss McNulty's mother have to do with this case?"

"Oh, nothing, my good man. I was just making polite conversation."

The judge sighed. "Sustained. Mr. Hotchkiss, please refrain from making polite conversation."

Heyes hid his smile. "Yes, Your Honor," he replied contritely. He'd accomplished what he'd set out to do, and that was to cast doubt on Miss Nellie McNulty's cedibility as a witness.

"So, Miss McNulty," Heyes continued, pretending to consult his notes. "You have testified that you witnessed Miss Navarro shoot her husband. How many times did Mrs. Navarro pull the trigger?"

"Two or three times."

"Was it two? Or was it three?"

"Yes."

A slight twitter of laughter, quickly suppressed, and a low groan were heard from the crowd of spectators.

"Miss McNulty" urged Heyes with exaggerated patience, "Think carefully. How many shots did Mrs. Navarro fire?"

The girl's eyes flicked away from Heyes and darted to the corner of the courtroom, just behind and beyond his right shoulder. Heyes made a mental note to check out the spectators back there as soon as he could turn his head without being noticed.

"Three." She responded with determination, looking back at her interrogator, meeting his eyes for a second, then looking down at her lap, where she was twisting and untwisting a crumpled handkerchief between her hands.

"And let me get this straight, now. You said you HEARD the shots."

"Yes, sir," she answered, nodding vigorously and appearing slightly more confident.

"But did you actually witness Mrs. Navarro pull the trigger?"

"Er, no," she ventured, not sure where this was going.

"So how can you be sure it was Mrs. Navarro who fired the gun?"

Once again the eyes flicked to the back corner of the courtroom, then returned to her interrogator.

"Well, who else could it have been?" she asked helplessly.

"Who indeed," answered Heyes with gravitas, once again turning to cast a meaningful look at the attentive faces of the jurors. "Thank you, Miss McNulty. No further questions," he said. As he turned to take his seat, Heyes's eyes swept the room. Sure enough, just as he'd suspected, sitting in the far corner in the back of the courtroom was Clark Navarro. Navarro's arms were folded across his chest, kind of the way Kid did when he was being stubborn. He was staring straight at Heyes with undisguised contempt. Heyes's expression did not betray a thing, but he was mentally making a promise, I'm gonna nail you to the wall, you bastard. To the wall. Heyes smiled blandly and sat down.

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A short while later, Heyes called Ted Camden, the barkeep from the Silver Spur, to the stand. The middle-aged, balding man looked somewhat nervous as he was sworn in, but he repeated the words of the oath in a strong, steady voice.

Heyes started in with no preamble,

"Mr. Camden, how long have you known Mrs. Navarro?"

"Ever since she first came to Abilene, maybe ten, eleven years ago."

"And in what capacity have you known her?"

"Well, if by that you mean, _how_ do I know her, I've been the bartender at the Silver Spur Saloon for nigh 18 years. When Gracie – uh, Mrs. Navarro – first hired on, she worked there serving drinks and, uh, entertaining customers and such. A couple years later, she came into some money and she bought the place. So now she's my boss."

"Is Mrs. Navarro a big drinker?"

"Gosh no! She never drank no more than one glass of sherry of an evening in all the years I've known her. She liked to stay sharp on the job."

"No further questions, your Honor."

Heyes returned to his seat, happily anticipating his opponent walking into the trap he'd just set.

The Prosecuting Attorney jumped up with a gleam in his eyes.

"Mr. Camden, are you aware of the penalties for perjury?"

"Uh, no sir, on account of I don't rightly know what perjury means."

"It means, Mr. Camden, lying under oath," responded Woodward, gleefully.

"Oh, well, in that case, I guess it must be something pretty bad," admitted Camden.

"Mr. Camden, you claim Mrs. Navarro never drank more than one drink per day, yet I can summon a score of witnesses to this stand who will testify they have seen the defendant consume multiple drinks in the course of one evening, and that they themselves have even purchased many of those drinks for her. Would you care to amend your earlier testimony, Mr. Camden?"

Camden chuckled a bit, then commented, "It's clear you ain't never worked in a saloon, Mr. Woodward."

"I should say not," scoffed the attorney.

Camden ignored the implied insult and went on to explain, "Ya see, in most saloons, bartenders keep a few special bottles. They look just like genuine liquor bottles, some whiskey, some sherry, some other kinds. But we fill 'em up with colored water or sometimes colored lemonade or cold tea. For the ladies, ya see."

Camden glanced around the courtroom. Some men looked on knowingly, while a few others appeared annoyed at the thought of being taken advantage of - paying good money for fake booze! The bartender continued, not the least bit nervous anymore, "Miss Grace and me, we had ourselves a little arrangement. When folks would offer to buy her a drink, I would pour it out of the fake sherry bottle. Just like I do for most of the gals. The saloon makes money, and the gals don't get sick or do something foolish – which they would if they drank all that liquor. The gals that drink the real stuff tend to run into trouble."

"No further questions," sputtered Woodward, sitting down hastily and casting a sour look in Heyes's direction.

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Later in the trial, Heyes brought the doctor back to the stand.

"You examined Frank Navarro's body, Dr. Castle?" he began.

"Yes, I did. It was just as the previous witnesses stated. Three gunshot wounds to the upper chest. One bullet still lodged against the sternum, which I removed. The other two passed through the liver and exited the body."

"What caliber was the bullet you removed from the sternum?"

".41 caliber," answered the doctor.

"Let the jury note that the derringer which Mrs. Navarro has stated she employed in self-defense takes .41 caliber bullets," Heyes stated. Then he continued his line of questioning,

"And the other two wounds? Would you say they were also made by a .41 caliber bullet?"

"Hard to say, since we didn't recover them," answered the doctor. "The wounds were consistent with a .41, but I cannot say for certain. But what I _can_ tell you is that they were fired at a different angle than the other one."

That caused quite a bit of commotion and discussion. When the court had calmed down again, Heyes asked,

"Could you describe the angles, doctor?"

"Yes. The bullet found embedded in the sternum entered almost perpendicular to the body – that is to say, straight on. The other two bullets entered at an oblique angle."

"Could you please describe this angle, Doctor?"

"Yes, of course. The entry wounds on the ventral side - er, the front - were much lower than the exit wounds on the dorsal side, which is the back."

"And how do you know which wounds are entry and which are exit?"

"This is of course an inference based on the fact that the third wound had no exit hole and was quite obviously shot from the front."

"But is it possible that those other two bullets entered from the back?"

"I'm no back-shooter!" Grace Navarro called out, incensed, rising from her chair.

"The defendant will keep her comments to herself," ordered the judge sternly.

There was a low chuckle and a few murmurs. Grace sat down, her arms folded tightly across her chest. She looked as though she were trying to physically prevent herself from an additional outburst.

Heyes shot his client a warning look, then returned his attention to the witness stand.

"Do you think it's possible that the two bullets which traveled straight through the body entered from the back?" asked Heyes.

"I suppose it is," answered the doctor, thoughtfully, appearing to be mulling this answer over.

"Which would indicate more than one shooter….?" offered Heyes.

The prosecutor leapt to his feet exclaiming, "Objection! Speculation!"

"Sustained," ruled the Judge.

Once again, murmurs began to rise, rolling like a wave over the crowd assembled in the courtroom. When the wave subsided, Heyes asked the question he'd been eager to pose,

"Was there anything out of the ordinary about the body?"

"Well…the doctor hesitated…there was something a little strange."

"What?"

Everyone in the courtroom sat forward in their chairs. They seemed to be holding their collective breaths, waiting for the doctor to explain.

"When you're in my line of work, you see a lot of bodies," Castle began.

"Yes, go on," prompted Heyes.

"Well, you notice things. Like for example, you notice how long it takes for rigor mortis to set in – for the body to stiffen up. It tends to vary, but it usually doesn't even get started for about one or two hours after the time of death."

"Mmm-hmmm," murmured Heyes, when the doctor paused once again.

"When they called me over to the hotel, they said the shooting had just happened, not more than five minutes before they came to fetch me. But the body, Frank's body, well, it was already cold and starting to get stiff. I've never seen that before…"

"So you're saying that Frank might have been killed earlier than what was reported?"

"Objection! Defense is asking the witness to speculate!"

"Your honor, Dr. Castle is what you'd call an "expert" witness. I'm merely asking him to share his medical expertise with the court."

"Overruled."

The opposing counsel sat down, but he did not look happy about it. Heyes pursued his line of questioning, "Dr. Castle, in your medical opinion, might Mr. Navarro have been killed earlier than what was reported?"

Castle glanced over at Clark Navarro, then looking back to Heyes, answered deliberately,

"All I'm saying is that Frank Navarro's body was as stiff as a body that had been dead for about an hour or so."

At this, what began as a dull roar of conversation rose to a crescendo. Judge Whitman slammed his gavel on the judge's bench several times, staccato punctuation to his barking, "Order! Order! Order in this court!"

The noise of the crowd gradually subsided, but the excitement in the room felt almost like a living thing.

"Dr. Castle," continued Heyes when all attention was back on his interrogation, "You examined the body at the hotel?"

"Yes, Clark – that's Frank's brother – came over to my office to get me."

"And when you arrived?"

"Frank was dead. They didn't need me to tell them that. I asked some of the men to carry him over my office for a proper examination."

"Is that a typical practice, Dr. Castle?" inquired Heyes.

"Of course. Natually, some doctors are more thorough - and more accurate - than others," he added, seeming to imply he was of the former group.

Heyes nodded, as if to agree with the doctor's self assessment.

"And Mrs. Navarro?" he inquied.

"They'd already hauled her off to the jail by then."

"And the state of the room?"

"Except for the blood, it was neat and tidy."

"The bed was made?"

"No, the bed was stripped. I remember noticing that. No sheets, blankets, pillows. I noticed because I wanted to cover Frank's body with a sheet before the men carried it through the street – just out of common decency, of course. I had to ask one of the maids to go fetch a sheet because the bed was bare."

Heyes paused to let that piece of news sink in. He took a swallow from the glass of water on the defense table, met Grace's eyes just for a moment, silently commanding her to trust him, then continued his inquiry.

"Dr. Castle, what was Mr. Navarro wearing when you examined his body?"

"He was wearing black trousers, black socks, and a white shirt."

"Nothing else? For example, no underclothes? No boots?"

"Just what I said," answered the doctor confidently.

"What was the condition of Mr. Navarro's shirt?" inquired Heyes. "And where is it now?"

"It was soaked with blood – more red than white, actually. My wife – she assists me – cut it off the body and placed it into the trash bin. We have a boy who comes once a week to take our trash to the town dump, so I imagine that's where it is now."


	13. Chapter 13

"Is this the shirt, Dr. Castle?" Heyes walked over to the defense table and removed something from his leather satchel, then returned to the witness box. He held up a once-white shirt that was stiff with dried blood, the color of rust on metal left exposed to the elements.

Castle adjusted his spectacles and peered closely at the garment, then answered, "It looks like the one Frank was wearing, and it certainly is soaked in blood. And I see it's been cut into two pieces."

"Yes, indeed it is," replied Heyes, demonstrating this fact by holding up a piece of the shirt in each hand. "Can you confirm it is Mr. Navarro's?" He then handed the shirt to the doctor, who looked at it carefully.

"Well, like I said, it looks just exactly like the one Frank was wearing, but how would I know for certain if this is the same shirt?"

"Please look inside the collar," instructed Heyes.

The doctor obeyed, then looked up, frowning.

"What do you see?" prompted Heyes.

"There's something embroidered there. Looks like initials. F.N. I'd say, but it's hard to be certain."

"F.N. as in _Frank Navarro_," Heyes pronounced dramatically, sweeping his eyes over the jury box.

"Objection!" called out the prosecuting attorney. "Once again, Mr. Hotchkiss's histrionics are completely irrelevant. Why bring Navarro's bloody shirt to show us?"

"Why indeed, Mr. Hotchkiss?" inquired the judge. "Are you going somewhere with this, Counsel?"

"Yes, your Honor. If I may, I would like Dr. Castle to examine the shirt more closely. But since it's a bit stiff, with your permission, I should like to rinse it off a bit first."

The judge nodded, his expression curious. The prosecutor rolled his eyes and some of the spectators looked at each other quizzically. Heyes caught the eye of a youth of about 17 years of age seated near the back of the courtroom. The lad nodded earnestly, jumped to his feet, and exited the courtroom, returning almost immediately with a bucket of water which Heyes had arranged for him to prepare earlier. The boy carried the bucket to the waiting attorney who first removed his suitcoat, revealing his slightly pudgy physique. He rolled up his own shirtsleeves and doused the bloody shirt in the bucket and scrubbed and squeezed it a bit. Then, toting the bucket, he approached the witness stand. Once there he pulled the sopping wet, now thoroughly pink, shirt from the bucket and wrung it out. Everyone present was watching this whole production closely. At last Heyes spoke, "Dr. Castle, how many times was Mr. Navarro shot?"

"Three."

"But only two bullets exited?"

"Yes."

"So how many bullet holes should be in this shirt?"

"Five of course. Three entry wounds and two exit wounds."

Heyes handed the shirt to the doctor, who took it gamely. He placed the bucket on the floor at the man's feet to catch any drips.

"Please show the jury the bullet holes," Heyes instructed.

Dr. Navarro methodically searched through the shirt pieces, carefully poring over the front side of one piece, then turning it over to examine the other. He switched to the second piece and repeated the procedure. He frowned, returned to the first piece of shirt, resuming his careful perusal. Finally he looked up, a puzzled expression on his face, and said slowly, "There are no bullet holes in this shirt."

"But I thought you said there should be five holes!"

"I did say there should have been five holes – because Frank had five holes in him!"

"How can you explain the absence of holes in Frank Navarro's shirt, doctor?" pressed Heyes.

"That's simple," replied the medical man, no longer looking puzzled. "The only logicl explanation is that Frank wasn't wearing this shirt when he was shot."

Murmurs filled the courtroom, but Heyes ignored them and stated, "And yet, he was wearing this shirt when you arrived at the hotel. Interesting." Heyes let the word 'interesting' hang in the courtroom for a beat. Then he said, "No further questions." and strode back to his seat.


	14. Chapter 14

The bloody shirt had taken prosecutor Bucknell by surprise, but he quickly recovered his composure. He wasn't yet certain of the significance, if any, of the fact that Clark hadn't been wearing the shirt when he was shot, but his opponent had revealed himself to be a clever man and he suspected another trap which he was determined to avoid. Jumping to his feet he called out, in an almost bored sounding tone, as if the previous demonstration had been a dull piece of play-acting, "Your Honor, objection. How do we know this is Frank Navarro's shirt? Even if it is, how do we know Mr. Hotchkiss didn't fetch it out of the late Mr. Navarro's wardrobe, cut it in half, and soak it in chicken blood or something so he could put on this little show?"

Judge Samuels narrowed his eyes and peered at the defending attorney, as if he was sizing him up, as if he could look into his very soul and gauge his honesty or lack thereof.

"Sustained," he finally pronounced. "Mr. Hotchkiss, can you provide further evidence that this shirt was indeed the shirt Mr. Frank Navarro was wearing when his body was carried to the doctor's office?"

Heyes smiled. "Yes, Your Honor, I'd be happy to. I'd like to call to the witness stand William Oaks."

A skinny, freckle-faced boy of about 10 or 11 years of age, scrubbed until his cheeks glowed pink and wearing his Sunday best, stood up uncertainly among the spectators, turning questioningly to the young matron sitting next to him, also obviously dressed in her finest. The woman, no doubt the lad's mother, smiled reassuringly, patting her son's slight shoulder and murmuring, "Go on, Billy. It's alright."

Billy's mother watched her son with a mixture of pride and worry on her face as he approached the witness stand cautiously, cap in hand, his eyes wide.

Before swearing in the youth, the bailiff made the ritual demand, "State your name."

"Billy O-," he began, then stopped abruptly and corrected himself, " - er, William Francis Oaks. But everyone calls me Billy."

Indulgent chuckles from the spectators.

"Billy," began Heyes in a friendly tone, once the oath-taking had been completed. "You work for Dr. Castle, correct?"

"Yes sir. I go over there Mondays and Wednesdays after school and sometimes on Saturdays. I chop wood and haul water and do errands and, well, all kinds of chores and stuff."

"Including hauling their trash to the dump?"

"Oh yeah, mostly it's bandages and other stuff like that."

"Billy, can you please tell the judge whose shirt this is?"

Billy of course had practiced his testimony with the lawyer so he wouldn't be nervous. The next question was going to be, 'How can you be certain this is Frank Navarro's shirt?' but Billy, anxious to tell his story, poured out the answers to both questions at once.

"Yessir. It's Mr. Frank's shirt, Your Honor. I was the one what took it to the trash heap. I remembered right where I put it and when Mr. Hotchkiss asked me about it, I went with him to the dumps and I showed it to him and he put it into a bag and brung it back with him. I swear, Judge, that's Mr. Frank's shirt, cross my heart and hope to die."

This last comment elicited a few more good-natured chuckles from the audience

"Objection!" exclaimed Bucknell, once again rising from his chair. "This is a young boy, easily influenced. Perhaps he wanted to impress a fancy city slicker…" he trailed off insinuating dishonesty.

"My boy don't lie!" A clear, indignant voice rang out. Billy's mother was now on her feet as well, her face furious with righteous indignation.

Judge Samuels rapped his gavel two times. He shot the prosecuting attorney a quick glare, then addressed the boy's mother in a gentle voice, "Order please, Mrs. Oaks. We all know Billy's a good boy." He turned to Bucknell and said, less gently, "Perhaps you'd like to cross-examine the boy, Counsel?"

Bucknell hesitated. He had to tread carefully here. His lawyerly instinct was to attempt to discredit this witness, but how could he manage it without appearing to bully an innocent child and risk losing the sympathies of the jury? He looked again at the youth, sitting rigidly straight in the witness's chair, an earnest expression on his freckled face. His mother was right, this kid was no liar. But he was beginning to suspect there were others in this courtroom who were not being completely honest. "No questions, Your Honor," he finally said, sitting down. As the boy was returning to his seat next to his mother, Bucknell glanced around the courtroom. In the far corner of the packed room, he caught a glimpse of Clark Navarro and shivered involuntarily. Was it his imagination or was the tall, dark-haired man scowling at him through hooded eyes….?


	15. Chapter 15

Hannibal Heyes, dressed in his own buff-colored trousers and Henley undershirt, was pacing back and forth in his hotel room. He was positive he'd figured it all out, but he still needed to gather enough evidence to prove it. First on the list: find the redheaded saloon gal and get her to talk. Grace said her name was Daisy Darling and she worked in the Silver Spur, but no one had seen her since the night of the killing. Along with the maid, Nellie, she seemed to have dropped out of sight. He was positive that Clark Navarro, the deceased's brother, had been the trigger man, but he hadn't put all the details together yet. He had believed Grace's story from the get-go, and so far it had held up. She'd even sketched a floorplan of the hotel room, complete with an ornate brass floorlamp featuring a stained glass shade, which matched up to the way Heyes had imagined the room set up when he'd found the bullet holes in the wall. After Grace had shot Frank and Barton took the unconscious woman over to the jailhouse, but before the doc came over to examine the body, someone had cleaned the room – not just stripped the bed, but also rearranged the furniture, swept up the broken glass, dug the slugs out of the wall, and patched the holes with some kind of white paste – tooth powder and water, he suspected. Seemed like that would take a spell. According to the doc, the body had been killed at least an hour before he saw it. Heyes reckoned an hour would be enough time to do all this, especially if more than one person were involved. Had Sally, the maid, helped clean the room, as she claimed to have done, or was she lying about that? Were Ellery and Barton in on it, too? Naw, Heyes dismissed that notion. Neither man seemed corrupt, just not exceptionally bright. No. His gut told him it was Clark. Hiding in the wardrobe, as the Kid had suggested. He definitely had motive: he stood to inherit everything. But he was already sharing in the profits, so why take the risk? Was there something more going on? Something to give him a stronger motive for fratricide? Heyes abruptly stopped pacing. It was time for action. Time to take a little peek into the Navarros' hotel safe. He quickly pulled on his navy blue shirt and buttoned it hastily, then buckled on his gunbelt, and pushed his feet into his scuffed black boots. Settling his old black hat on his head, Heyes cautiously slipped out the hotel room door and padded down the hall. As he descended the staircase swiftly and silently, Heyes checked his pocket watch: 3 am. The perfect time for safe-cracking. Late-night revelers would have all headed to their beds by now and early-morning risers would not be astir yet. Stepping into the cool night air of the street, Heyes anticipated the familiar ritual: ear pressed tightly to cool, hard metal, nimble fingers manipulating the dial, concentrating, listening for the tumblers falling into place. That triumphant, satisfying feeling when the handle gave and the door swung open. The stars overhead sparkled, reflecting in the gleam in Hannibal Heyes's eyes as he ghosted through the deserted streets of Abilene toward his destination. Trying for amnesty and staying on the straight and narrow were certainly challenging for the erstwhile outlaw leader, but at least opportunities to break into safes were constantly cropping up.

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Heyes's pocketwatch read 4:20 am when he crept silently back into his hotel room. He was grinning happily and carrying a small sheaf of papers. Grace had been correct; sly old Clark Navarro had kept two sets of books. It was an old story: Apparently, Frank's brother had managed to rack up a sizable gambling debt. The safe had contained several IOUs signed by both Clark and Frank, indicating the latter had bailed out the former several times in the past. Later, it seems that Frank had gotten fed up and demanded that Clark stop skimming profits as well as pay back what he had helped himself to. The most damning piece of evidence was an official-looking letter from Frank warning Clark that brother or not, he would terminate their association if he didn't repay his debts.


	16. Chapter 16

Heyes was once again comfortably dressed in his own clothes, being very careful not to cross paths with anyone that might recognize Joshua Smith. He had systematically visited every brothel and saloon in Abilene. There'd been a handful of redheaded gals, but no Daisy. Now he was back in the Abilene House, waiting in ambush for Sally, the young maid. Just as she came around the corner carrying an armful of folded sheets, he stepped into her path. They both hit the floor in a jumble of linens.

"Oh, mah dear girl,' he cried out, affecting an aristocratic southern twang, somewhat reminiscent of the Kid's portrayal of Charlotte Brandon's brother the memorable time the partners had helped Clementine skin that weasel, Winford Fletcher. "I beg your pardon for mah clumsiness. Are you alright?"

The slight, plainly dressed girl was trying to gather up the linens, her face pink with embarrassment.

"Here, let me help you with that, sweetheart."

Upon hearing the term of endearment, her face went from pink to flaming scarlet. Kneeling, he attempted to help her up. She tried to pull her hands away from him as if they had been burned. But this handsome, dark-haired, southern-talking cowboy wouldn't let go. He gazed into her pale blue eyes with his warm, chocolate brown ones. He smiled his most charming smile, the one that showed his dimples to their best advantage, and crooned,

"Well, aren't you the prettiest little gal I ever did see."

Sally was unaccustomed to attention, especially male attention. And attention from the most good-looking male she'd ever seen, at least up-close, made he positively weak in the knees. And he had just called her pretty! Another first. She was putty in his hands and Heyes knew it. The next thing she realized, he was helping her refold the sheets, gazing into her eyes and chatting her up, complimenting her hair, her eyes, asking her what a pretty girl like her was doing working as a maid, wondering aloud if she'd consent to going to supper with him sometime. The silver-tongued former outlaw felt just a little mean building up her hopes like that, but how else was he going to get to the bottom of this case? He told her his name was Davy and asked her to tell him hers.

When she answered, "Sally," he feigned alarm.

"Sally? Aren't you Clark Navarro's girl? Haven't I heard rumors about Clark Navarro and a girl named Sally?"

"Oh, no – Mr. Clark? Oh, he's not – we're not – um – that's not - "

It was almost painful to listen to the girl stumble and stammer over the words. Heyes decided to try a more direct approach.

"Are you and Mr. Clark Navarro romantically involved?" he demanded.

"Oh no! Oh, never. No, sir."

"So, what is your exact relationship with Mr. Navarro?" he pressed. Not surprisingly, she answered obediently,

"He – he – he tells me what to do."

"And you do it."

"Yes."

"Why? Why do you do it?"

"I don't know." Her voice was small, doubtful. It might have been the first time she had thought about the reason behind her compliancy. Mr. Clark was not actually her boss. But he had always assumed a role of authority around the hotel, even before his brother's death. And he was kind of scary, too. And she needed to work. If she lost her job at the hotel she didn't know what she'd do. It never occurred to Sally to NOT do what Mr. Clark told her to do.

"Does he pay you to do it?" The handsome southern gentleman's question jarred Sally out of her reverie.

"No. But he tells me if I don't do it then I'll lose my job. I need my job," she answered.

"Would you do something Mr. Navarro told you to do it you knew it was wrong?" pressed "Davy."

"Wrong?"

"For example, if it would help someone get away with a crime, maybe even a … murder?"

"Oh, no. Oh, no. I would never."

"So why did you lie to the lawyer about the room where Frank Navarro was killed?"

"You know the lawyer?"

"He's a business acquaintance of mine. But that's not important. You told him that all you did was scrub up the blood in the room where Mr. Frank was killed. But that wasn't all you did, was it, Sally?"

"I only just stripped the bed. And I did scrub the floor, I did."

"What about the broken lamp?"

"How did you know about the broken lamp?" Sally was mystified, her expression betraying he fright.

"And who rearranged the furniture?"

"I didn't do nothing wrong! I didn't! Honest!"

Sally was crying softly now. Heyes drew her into an alcove and held her thin frame in his arms, stroking her back gently, trying to soothe her.

"There, there. I know. You didn't do anything wrong. But you need to tell me everything, Sally. I promise you won't lose your job. In fact, what you say could prevent Mrs. Navarro from hanging. And then she'll be your boss again, right Sally? And she will be so grateful that you did the right thing that you'll never lose your job. Wouldn't that be nice, Sally?"

He stepped back, placed his hand under her chin and drew it up.

"Come on, Sally. You can tell me what happened."

She looked up at him through red-rimmed eyes. He was so kind, she thought. So gallant and trustworthy. Straightening, she wiped her nose with her sleeve and began her account in a soft voice, "I heard the shots. Three. First there were two shots, close together. I ran to see what happened. As I was running, I heard the third shot. When I got to the room, the door was open – not all the way, but enough. Enough to see inside. I thought they were both dead! Mr. Frank was on the floor – so much blood. And Mrs. Grace was on the bed. There was – there was a pillow on her face. I thought it meant she was dead. They put things on people's faces when they die. I know. I've seen it."

"And where was Clark Navarro?"

"Mr. Clark was crouched over Mr. Frank. I think he was trying to help him. He was doing up his shirt. Trying to stop the bleeding, I guess. And then he looked up at me. And he said – he said - "

"What did he say, Sally?" Heyes asked gently.

Sally scrunched her eyes tightly shut and almost shouted, "Don't just stand there like a ninny! Go get help! I ran as fast as I could! The first person I saw was Nellie. I said, Nellie, help! We need to help!"

"And then we ran back to the room. Mr. Frank, he had stripped the whole bed by then. He handed me this big pile of sheets and pillows and blankets and he said, Burn these. Just burn these."

"I said I thought I could soak them and then scrub out the blood from them and he said no you'll never get those clean. Go burn them. And come back here with a scrub brush and a pail of soapy water. And a broom! And a dustpan!"

"So I took the sheets and everything down to the laundry and I put them in the fireplace. And then I went back up. And by then Nellie had gone to get the Marshal. And that's when I saw that Mr. Clark had moved the bed. He put it over onto the other side of the room. And when he saw me he said to sweep up the broken glass from the lamp and get it out, quick."

Sally paused, slender tendrils of doubt as to Mr. Clark's motivations beginning to prod gently at the corners of her consciousness. She tried to push them away and added, almost defensively,

"I thought it was like when company comes. He wanted the room to look nice when the marshal came over."

Heyes nodded slowly. He could picture the entire crime and its aftermath. He knew how Clark had done it. Now he just had to prove it in court.

"Sally, where is Daisy?"

Sally's lower lip began to tremble.

"You know where she is, don't you? You've got to tell me, Sally. Her testimony can save Grace Navarro from the hangman's noose."

"Well, who's gonna save Daisy from Clark Navarro?" Sally ventured.

"If Daisy says what I think she's gonna say, then Clark Navarro will be on that gallows instead of his sister-in-law, and neither you nor Daisy has to worry about him ever again. And Mrs. Navarro will be so grateful, she'll hire you both for life."

It took a little more convincing, but Sally finally told Heyes that Daisy had packed up all her things and taken the early stage out of town the next morning. Seems that when Grace had found her in the arms of her husband and ordered her to get out, Daisy logically assumed she'd just lost her job. She left so fast she never even would have heard the shots.


	17. Chapter 17

Heyes wished he could have worn his own clothes and gone to Brownwood as Joshua Smith, but there was no way around it. He had to be Hotchkiss. It had been simple to figure out what town to visit – he had simply walked over to the stage coach station and asked if he could look at the list of passengers from the day after Navarro had been killed. When he saw the childish scrawl, "Daisy Darling" on the list, he asked the station agent if he remembered her. The elderly, white-haired gent chuckled and replied, "Sure! She was a purty little thing. And full of spit! Hair red as my grampa's nose on a Saturday night. She was the very first customer that day – sittin' right there on that bench with her valise in her lap waitin' for me to open up. Asks me when the next stage was leavin' and I says 8 o'clock. She says, I'll take it! So I says, doncha wanna know where you're goin', little lady? She pulls out a golden Eagle and says how far'll this get me? I says Brownwood and she says, One way ticket to Brownwood! Just like that. Then she says she wants to see a little of the world while she's still young. Ah youth…" The garrulous old fellow appeared to be about to launch into some recollection of his own long-ago youth, but Heyes cut him off before he could begin, thanking the agent and pressing a dollar coin into his gnarled hand.

Finding the town may have been easy, but it took a fair bit of searching to hit upon the right saloon. Nobody'd heard of a redheaded gal name of Daisy in the first few saloons he entered. So then Heyes started asking for any redheaded saloon gals without mentioning a name. In the White Horse, the redheaded saloon gal that was pointed out to him was a big, buxom woman on the far side of 30, but Daisy Darling had been described as very young and very slightly-built. In Lucky Aces, the barkeep said they used to have a redhead until Mabel dyed her hair blonde. He pointed out Mabel, but she was tall and willowy, platinum hair obviously bleached in stark contrast to her dark brows and lashes.

Finally, in the aptly named Last Chance Saloon, when he asked the bartender if there were any petite, young, redheaded saloon girls, he pointed into a corner and said, "Gwen sounds like just your type. She's new here, but she's already a favorite of the regulars."

Heyes thanked the bartender and left a few coins on the counter. As he neared the small knot of young saloon girls, he paused to listen in on their conversation.

"Gwen, you said you came from Abilene. Is it true what they say that the marshal there caught Kid Curry?" asked one of the girls, addressing the redhead who had been pointed out to him.

"Did you see him?" another queried breathlessly. Almost simultaneously, a third asked, "What was he like?" while the others crowded in close to hear the answer.

Gwen/Daisy was glorying in being the center of attention. "I saw him alright. As a matter of fact, I almost met him!" the girl gushed. "I was standing right there in front of the saloon when the stage coach pulled in and Marshal Ellery got off it with the Kid. His hands were tied behind his back and he almost fell when he got out, but he caught his balance just in time. Handsome? Whoo-ee! Let me tell you, honey. They say Kid Curry's not only the Fastest Gun in the West; he's a real ladies' man and I for one can vouch he's got the looks to back that up. What a cryin' shame he's headin' off to spend the rest of his life in prison with nothing but menfolk for company."

The other girls were enthralled with the story.

Heyes cleared his throat and all the girls suddenly remembered their jobs. Several scurried off but the storyteller and one other lovely brunette remained to flirt with the distinguished-looking, well-dressed gentleman who approached them.

"Miss Gwen?" began Heyes. "Might I have a word?"

"Time is money," answered the girl saucily, with a flip of her auburn locks. "You buyin' me a drink, Poindexter?"

"Certainly, certainly." Heyes signaled the bartender and requested a drink for the girl and a refill of his own glass. The second girl rolled her eyes at her rival and stalked off in a small huff to find another prospect. Soon Heyes was nursing a whiskey and the redhead was sipping something that looked like it might be sherry.

"So, Gwen," he began conversationally, "you're new here I'm told. Where did you work before?"

"Oh, here and there," she answered vaguely, raising the glass to her rouged lips and gazing up at her companion coyly over its rim.

"Ahhh…" Heyes pretended to ponder. "You certainly resemble a gal I heard tell of who used to work in the Silver Spur up in Abilene. Everyone in Abilene says she was the prettiest little thing they ever did see."

The redhead's whole face lit up. "That's me!" she exclaimed proudly. "I used to work there before I came here."

"No, no, Gwen, it couldn't be you" Heyes demurred. "This girl's name was Daisy. Daisy Darling."

"I _am _Daisy Darling!" she insisted. "I changed my name when I came here. Gwenevere Royale," she pronounced the name extravagantly, emphasizing each syllable. "I got the first name from a book. Gwenevere was a real lady. And Royale, well Royale just sounds really royal, you know."

"But you're real name is Daisy Darling."

"Well, Daisy anyway. Daisy Crayton, but that don't sound as nice as Daisy Darling. I'm real good at makin' up names. Lots of the gals ask me to make up names for them."

"Well, you certainly are a clever girl," he said. She fairly preened over this compliment. Heyes continued ladling out the flattery. "A clever girl like you must have attracted quite a few real gentlemen. Brains and beauty, such an alluring combination." He was laying it on thick, and Daisy was lapping it up like a kitten would a saucer of cream.

"In fact," he continued, "folks say that Mr. Frank Navarro was quite smitten with you. And that you might have been … involved … with him without his wife's knowledge."

"Well, yeah, me and Frank had a thing. And Mrs. Navarro knew it, too, only she pretended like she didn't. And we tried not to throw it in her face, we really did. That was why I was kinda surprised when I got the note."

"The note…?"

"Yeah, the note said to meet him in his private room in 10 minutes – said he couldn't wait until I got off duty like we usually did. And the note was in an envelope with – get this! A gold Eagle like he always gave me AND a hunnert dollar bill!"

"So this was unusual….?"

"Yeah, I was surprised, but what the hell! A hunnert bucks! So I went to his room."

"But Mrs. Navarro came in?"

"Yeah, which was kinda strange because she never went up to her room when the place was busy, and it was jumpin' that night!"

"What happened when she came in?'

"Oh, she was mad as a cat fallin' into the horse trough. She says, 'How dare you! In our room! In my bed!' Then she says, 'Get out of here, you little hussy! And don't you ever come back!' So I grabbed up my clothes and hightailed it out of there. The very next morning I took a stage as far as my Eagle could take me and I walked into this place and they hired me on the spot. I put the hunnert in the bank. It's the start of my stake," she added with pride. "Someday I'll own my own place, just like Mrs. Grace."

"Did you hear anything as you left? Any gunshots?"

"I heard her slap his face. But that's it. Like I said, Mister. I ran."

"I am sorry to have to be the one to tell you this," Heyes said gently, "but Frank Navarro is dead. After you left, Grace Navarro shot him."

"Frank's dead? Huh. I guess she must've been pretty jealous of me, huh?" she asked, seeming to take pride in this fact.

"You're not … upset… that he's dead?" ventured Heyes.

"Oh. Well. It's sad and everything," she answered, shrugging her shoulders and taking a sip of sherry. "So you're her lawyer, huh?" She looked him up and down with a practiced eye, assessing the cut of his suit, taking in the glint of his gold watch chain and the onyx cufflinks peeking out of his suitcoat.

"Yes, I am and I need you to return with me to Abilene to testify."

"Why would I do that?"

"Your testimony could show that Mrs. Navarro was framed. Do you still have the note?"

"Oh, yeah. I save all my love letters."

"You have a lot of love letters?"

"Well, actually, it's my first," the redhead admitted. "But I expect I'll get a lot of 'em. And this one's a doozy."

Heyes had positioned himself to command a view of the batwing doors, which he glanced at periodically. Just then, two burly men, dusty from the trail and sporting tied-down guns low on their hips, pushed through the doors, scanning the saloon's interior menacingly. They approached the bartender, now at the other end of the long bar. Over the general hubbub in the bar, he couldn't make out the words, but he suspected they were asking the same question he had. He saw the bartender shrug as he replied to their queries. Heyes had reckoned Clark would be looking for Daisy too - but for opposite reasons to his own. He turned to shelter the diminutive girl from view of the door with his larger body and commanded, "Daisy, quick. Take me to your room. Those men are here to hurt you so you won't testify."

"Wow! This is gettin' excitin'!" Daisy exclaimed, gulping the rest of her drink and slamming the glass down on the bar. She grabbed his arm and led him towards the stairs in the back of the barroom. Heyes quickly threw one arm around her shoulders and maneuvered her in such a way that his body continued to block her smaller one from sight as they mounted the stairs. This wasn't at all difficult as the top of her flaming red head barely reached his armpit.

When they entered her room, Heyes closed the door behind them and locked it. He glanced at the window and was relieved to see that it opened onto the second story balcony. Good. They would not be exiting through the saloon. Meanwhile, the little redhead was burrowing through a drawer, tossing various garments onto the floor and the nearby unmade bed carelessly. "Here it is!" she cried triumphantly and handed him a small piece of paper. Heyes scanned it quickly, seeing that she had reported its contents almost verbatim:

Daisy,

I cannot wait to see you tonight. Meet me in my suite in ten minutes.

Frank

"Well, isn't that romantic?" Heyes remarked, taking care to hide the irony in his tone.

"Yeah, innit?" she agreed, sighing like a schoolgirl, sinking down onto the bed.

Heyes continued to examine the letter, then looked up and asked, "Daisy, is this Frank's handwriting?"

"Well, it must be. He wrote it, din't he?"

"How do you know he wrote it?"

"Well it said come up to my room and meet me and I went up there and there he was, wasn't he?"

Heyes sighed and tried a different tactic, even though he didn't really need Daisy to tell him that this note more closely matched the handwriting of Clark Navarro, not Frank Navarro, he having seen samples of both men's writing among the papers he had found in the hotel safe. They were similar, but Heyes remembered the very distinct loops that Frank always used to make the capital 'F' in his name. Still, he asked patiently, "Have you ever seen anything else Frank wrote?"

The girl scrunched up her face, thinking for a beat, then answered, "Naw. Only this here."

Heyes looked her straight in the eye and said solemnly, "Daisy, this is evidence. I need to take it – but rest assured I will return it to you. And I need you to come back with me and tell the judge and jury everything you told me just now."

"I dunno," she demurred, a crafty look in her eyes. "What's in it for me?"

Once again, Heyes appealed to the girl's vanity, saying, "Why, you'll be the star of the trial! The star witness. And I'll pay your stage coach fare both ways. And put you up in the nicest hotel in Abilene."

"That's it?" Her green eyes flashed greedily. Heyes thought back to his initial glimpse of the girl and the conversation he had overheard. His dimples made a brief appearance, which somehow lent the staid lawyer Hotchkiss the look of a rakish young boy.

"And…. I can fix it up so you can meet Kid Curry."

That got her attention. She sat up straight. "You know Kid Curry?"

"I'm his lawyer," he answered. He sat on the bed next to her, taking one small hand into his own and looking into her eyes. The famed silver tongue began to do its work once again. "Just think. You might be the last woman that the infamous Kid Curry will ever see before he gets hauled off to Wyoming to spend the next twenty years of his life in prison. Talk about romantic: A desperate young outlaw bidding farewell to the fairer gender. His final memory of womanhood the most beautiful lady he's ever clapped his baby blue eyes upon."

The afore-mentioned most beautiful lady was taking the bait – hook, line, and sinker - even if she wasn't completely sure what a few of the fancier words meant. But they sounded like something out of a book and she certainly understood the gist of the speech. Daisy repeated the cocky hair flip she'd executed earlier and said confidently, "Tell ya what. I'll come be your star witness. If I get to give Kid Curry a farewell kiss."

"Sure!" agreed Heyes, nodding. "The Kid would like that." And that part was no lie, he thought to himself.


	18. Chapter 18

Hannibal Heyes, still in his Wendell Hotchkiss disguise, was seated alone in the hotel dining room, sipping a glass of red wine and finishing up his dinner. He was pretending he hadn't noticed the tall, slim man with the pencil-thin mustache at the corner table staring at him openly. Finally, through his peripheral vision, he noticed Clark Navarro approaching the table. Instantly a waiter materialized and pulled out the opposite chair.

"Do you mind if I sit?" inquired Navarro, seating himself without waiting for an answer from the table's occupant. Another waiter placed a glass of brandy in front of him and he picked it up and sipped, his dark, hooded eyes staring directly into Heyes's.

"It seems that you already have," responded Heyes, smiling affably. "But after all, it is your hotel, isn't it? Or it will be, once your sister-in-law is out of the picture." He let the last phrase hang between them for a moment, then added, "That is, IF she's convicted." Heyes took a swallow of wine.

Frank took another sip of brandy and scowled. With exaggerated casualness, he extracted a fragrant cigar from his breast pocket and placed it in his mouth. A petty young waitress seemed to appear out of thin air to stand at his side. She struck a match and lit Navarro's cigar, then faded away. Navarro did not offer a cigar to his companion. Instead, he took several long, deep puffs, and blew the smoke deliberately and slowly into the fussy little attorney's face.

"I rather doubt there's any chance she won't be," he drawled. "The poor woman doesn't have a very good lawyer." He shook his head in mock sorrow.

Heyes thought his carefully constructed Hotchkiss persona might have quailed at this insult, but he boldly broke character. Ignoring the smoke that was stinging his eyes, he allowed his voice to become slightly less milque-toasty and a bit more outlaw leader-ish as he answered.

"I wouldn't be so confident if I were in your shoes, Navarro. It's only a matter of time until the truth comes out."

If Navarro noticed that the portly defense attorney seemed less timid than he had in the past, he didn't let on. After another prolonged puff on the cigar, he asked, "And just what truth might that be, Mr. Hotchkiss?"

"That you killed your brother," answered Heyes.

Clark must be a good poker player, thought Heyes to himself, because his face did not betray what he thought of this accusation. "Oh, really?" he replied. "You don't have much imagination, do you, Hotchkiss? The old "Cain and Abel" story is rather trite, wouldn't you agree? And just how did I manage to kill my brother?"

Heyes laid his cards on the table. Well, not all of them. He still had an Ace in the hole.

"Frank said he had a headache and he was going to go upstairs and lie down. So you set him up. You wrote that note and made sure his mistress, Daisy Darling, got it. Then you waited just long enough until you sought out Grace. You insisted she go up and check on him so she would catch them in the act. You knew she'd be furious. And you knew that if you could manage to kill Frank and make it look like Grace did it, she'd hang and you'd have them both out of the way. As Frank's closest relative, you'd inherit everything."

Clark looked slightly amused. "My, my, but you have a vivid imagination after all. Do go on."

Heyes obliged him. "You were hiding in the wardrobe the whole time. Watching your brother beat his wife. It was just a stroke of luck that Frank knocked Grace out cold against the headboard. That's when you shot him in the back. When he fell on top of Grace you began to smother her with the pillow. But she came to! Thinking Frank was trying to kill her, she managed to pull her own derringer and shoot him. But that tuned out to work in your favor. How fortunate that your gun and Grace's guns use the same caliber bullets. Another crack on the head and she was fully unconscious. Then you pulled your brother's body onto the floor and dressed him hastily – not bothering with his underwear or socks and shoes. You knew there wouldn't be enough time for all that. When the chambermaid showed up, you had her strip the bed and burn the bloody sheets. You wanted everyone to believe Grace was passed out drunk, not injured. Then you rearranged the furniture so it would appear that Grace had shot her husband from the other side of the room.

"A very interesting, story, Mr. Hotchkiss," Clark said with an oily smile. "It's such a shame that you don't have any actual evidence. Unless you can magically conjure up this mythical Daisy Darling, you don't have a leg to stand on."

Heyes drained the last of his wine and dabbed at his lips with a snowy white linen napkin. This time it was he who wore the poker face. Clark sounded confident, and Clark looked confident. But Heyes knew Clark's men had failed to find and silence Daisy Darling because she was safely ensconced in the hotel across town, in the room adjacent to his own.

And Clark was starting to worry. Heyes had finally spotted his "tell." Despite the sarcastic tone and malevolent smile, Clark Navarro's right eyelid twitched – one tiny, almost imperceptible twitch. But Heyes had seen it. And now he knew that not only were all his inferences correct, he could prove it. Beyond a shadow of a doubt.


	19. Chapter 19

"CURRY!" the shout broke the silence that had descended upon the jailhouse ever since Jenks had sobered up and been released and Grace Navarro had been escorted to the courthouse for her trial. Heyes had whispered to him in passing that the Judge had decreed the day before that on this day he would continue the trial straight through until it was settled or the church bells struck midnight - whichever came first. They'd take short breaks for meals, but that's it. Curry had never heard of such a crazy arrangement, but he figured everyone in town was anxious to get this trial over and done with so things could get back to normal. In fact, folks were so distracted by the goings-on at the courthouse, no one seemed to question why the state of Wyoming hadn't yet sent anyone to pick up their notorious prisoner.

"You've got a visitor!"

Kid sat up on his cot when he heard Barton holler and ran both fingers through his unruly gold curls. The deputy soon appeared in the hallway to the cellblock, leading a petite, redheaded young girl, clad in the brightly colored, yet slightly tawdry finery that clearly indicated her profession. Barton wore a lecherous grin on his face, no doubt savoring the just- completed act of patting down her neat little figure for possible weapons.

"So you're him. You're Kid Curry," the gamine redhead said, awe in her voice, when she reached the cell. Barton leaned against the stone wall, his right hand lightly resting on the butt of his six-gun, his eyes glued to the little saloon gal, focused slightly southward of her face.

"In the flesh," Curry answered sarcastically, rising to his feet.

"This here's Daisy," Deputy Barton said. "She usedta work over to the Silver Spur."

"I'm the star witness," Daisy bragged. "I'm gonna testify at Grace Navarro's murder trial. They'll probably write about me in the newspaper."

"Oh, really? Then why are you over here at the jail and not in the courthouse, darlin'?" Curry asked almost lazily, leaning on the bars and gazing down at her.

"That city slicker lawyer? You know, Hotchkiss? He asked me to testify, but I said what's in it for me? So he said he knew you. He must have heard me talkin' 'bout you in the saloon. So Hotchkiss, he said I could be the last girl you would get to kiss before you get locked away in the Wyoming Territorial Prison for twenty years! Maybe the last woman ever, if you die there," she added matter-of-factly, not a trace of sympathy in her voice.

"Oh, he did, did he?"

"Yeah. Just imagine. I can go around tellin' folks that I was the last girl to kiss Kid Curry while he was still young. And handsome." She fluttered her long eyelashes flirtatiously.

"Maybe they'll put you in the newspaper for that, too," Curry suggested facetiously.

"Do ya think?" she asked eagerly, missing his sarcasm completely.

"So all you want is a kiss and then you'll go testify?" Curry asked.

"Yeah. And he said to tell you 9:15. The lawyer. Whatever that means. Do you know what it means?"

"I've got a pretty good idea," he muttered.

"What about 9:15?" asked Barton suspiciously.

"I guess that's the time Miss Daisy here will be testifyin'," Kid answered innocently. "I heard the trial is lastin' into the night."

Daisy stuck out her hand. She was holding a small metal object in it.

"Oh, and then he said Mrs. Navarro wanted you to have this tube of lip rouge to remember her by. Odd, right? Did you have somethin' goin' on with her or somethin'?"

The deputy scoffed at that notion, and Curry just shrugged his broad shoulders as she passed him the tube of lip rouge through the bars. He shoved it into his front trouser pocket, then took hold of the bars with both hands.

"Well, come on over here then, Daisy darlin'," he coaxed. "If Hotchkiss promised you a kiss, then I reckon I better give it to ya."

Curry bent his head and positioned his lips in the opening between the two bars he was grasping to bestow the requisite kiss. He figured as long as Heyes wanted him to do it, he may as well enjoy it. So he closed his eyes and waited for the little redhead to lean in. She stood up on her toes and reached one slender arm through the bars, twining her fingers through his curls as her mouth met his. The Kid kept his grip on the bars, but he took his time, kissing the girl slowly, tenderly, deeply, and very thoroughly. When he finally pulled away, almost languidly, Daisy stood rooted to the floor for a moment or two, eyes still closed, as if in a daze. For that brief time, she looked almost sweet - the girl she might have been if her circumstances had been different and she hadn't been forced onto her current career path. Barton was staring at her, mouth slightly open, lust all over his face.

Almost immediately, the spell was broken. Daisy's green eyes snapped open and she grinned triumphantly, as if she has just won a prize.

"Don't you never forget me while you're rottin' away in prison, Kid!" she exclaimed happily, then turned to hurry out of the jailhouse, followed by Barton, who was chortling merrily at her parting words.

When he heard the door to the marshal's office slam shut, the Kid sat down on his bunk, twisting his body so that it blocked what he was doing, should Barton decide to look in. He fished the brass tube with the filigreed etching from his pocket, then unscrewed the end. He shook the tube with one hand so that the object it contained slid out and dropped into the palm of his other hand. Curry grinned.

Then he surreptitiously removed his reassembled Colt from beneath his mattress and loaded the chamber with the one precious bullet.

Now all he had to do was wait until 9:15.


	20. Chapter 20

After what felt like an eternity, the bells in the Methodist Church on the town square a few blocks away from the jailhouse chimed nine times. Curry started a mental fifteen minute countdown. Curry was quite adept at judging time with no timepiece, due to his many experiences watching his partner's back during train robberies and safe-crackings, and the like.

At long last he judged it was 9:15. He pulled out Heyes's lockpick from his boot. He wasn't nearly as talented as his partner at opening locks, but he could get the job done if need be. After several minutes of fumbling and muttered cursing, he managed to unlock the heavy iron padlock. He removed it silently, then carefully swung the door to the jail cell open. Colt in hand, he crept noiselessly down the hall until he reached the door between the cellblock and the office. This door was locked also, but it was a simple lock, not a heavy padlock. It would be easier and quicker to open. Curry placed his ear on the door. He heard a male voice holler,

"The jury is comin' back! They're gonna read the verdict!"

Curry shook his head in wonder. How could Heyes have possibly predicted the timing…?

"You comin', Bart?" said the voice.

"You know I can't come, Slim," replied the deputy. "I've got me a dangerous outlaw to guard, in case you hadn't heard!" Barton added with self-importance, "Don't you know Kid Curry is the fastest gun in the West? They can't trust 'im with just anybody when the Marshal ain't here."

Once again, Curry set to work with the lockpick and had the door unlocked quickly enough to make his partner proud. He pushed it open just a crack and peered out. The deputy was standing in the open doorway to the street, slouched against the jamb, watching the commotion as throngs of people rushed over to the courthouse to hear the anticipated verdict.

Curry stepped into the office silently and cleared his throat.

Barton whirled around, reaching for his sidearm, but his hand froze in mid-motion and his entire body began to quaver when his eyes met the icy blue gaze of the purported Fastest Gun in the West, who was somehow – impossibly – no longer safely locked in his cell, but instead standing across the room, gun in hand and pointed steadily at his heart.

"H-how did you get – where did you – what did you - " The hapless deputy kept starting and stopping his line of questioning in utter confusion. Curry out of his cell and holding a gun on him was just plain impossible! And yet, that was what his eyes told him was happening.

"Shut the door, Bart," the Kid commanded quietly, even though no one in the streets had the least bit of interest about anything other than the verdict.

Barton complied, knees trembling slightly.

"Place your gun on the desk." Again, the deputy obeyed, his hand shaking slightly as he removed his gun from its holster and set it on the marshal's desk.

"Now take a little walk with me," instructed the gunman in a tone of voice no sane man would disobey. He jerked his head toward the open door behind him.

Once Deputy Barton was locked securely in the cell farthest to the rear of the jail, wrists cuffed behind his back, his own bandana knotted tightly around his mouth, the Kid closed and locked the door between the cells and office area. He lowered the lamp's flame slightly, then peered out of the front door, looking first up and then down the now deserted street. Assured that all the townspeople were safely occupied in the courthouse, Curry slipped outside and made his way through the shadows of the buildings that lined the street. He breathed in deeply, exuberant in his newly-reclaimed freedom. It was the first time he'd been outdoors in over a week! Redolent as it was of horse manure and various other unsavory odors associated with civilization, the fresh evening air of Abilene sure beat the stale smells of the jailhouse.

Cautiously, using the back streets, Curry strode toward the outskirts of town, heading for the small patch of Manzanita trees where Heyes had said he would leave a horse and gear for him. The Kid was sorely tempted to swing by the courthouse to hear the verdict for himself, but better not to take any chances. Heyes would tell him all about the trial when they finally met up again, back in Red Rock. He made a mental note to ask his partner how he knew the verdict would come in at 9:15. He'd long ago accepted Heyes's self-proclaimed genius, but this latest feat seemed downright super-human!


	21. Chapter 21

~ One Week Later at Patrick "Big Mac" MacCreedy's Ranch in Red Rock ~

Curry's sharp eyes watched the horseman approaching, inky silhouette starkly black against the early evening twilight. He knew the identity of the rider instantly from long familiarity. As he watched his approach, the Kid finished up the last couple drags from his cigar, then tossed the butt onto the dusty ground just as the mounted man trotted up to the ranch house.

"'bout time you showed up," drawled Kid, not moving from his position on the rancho's wide veranda, sprawled out on a rocking chair with his long legs propped up on the railing. Even though he didn't get up, his face clearly betrayed both happiness and relief at their reunion. When his partner dropped down from his mount, a young stable boy hustled up to take the animal by the bridle, and led it off in the direction of one of the corrals. Kid rose from his chair, hopped lightly down the front steps, and approached Heyes with right arm outstretched and a grin on his face so broad it formed creases in his cheeks. What began as a hand-clasp quickly evolved into a warm but manly hug, complete with vigorous back-slapping.

"Well, it seems Wendell Hotchkiss had to leave town on sudden business, but Joshua Smith happened to return from his errand – just in time to comfort the poor widow Navarro - _and_ celebrate her acquittal," Heyes answered with a wink, after they had released their grip on one another.

"Heyes, you devil," began Curry grinning, then abruptly realized the import of the word "acquittal."

"Wait! You won the case!"

"Of course I won the case! Or, I should say, Wendell Hotchkiss won the case! And he was paid quite handsomely for his efforts, I might add," Heyes reported, smiling smugly.

"How much?" asked the Kid eagerly.

Heyes ignored his partner's question as they both took adjacent seats on the porch.

"Kid," he asked, settling into the chair with a contented sigh, "did you ever have any doubt that I would win that case? I mean, Grace was clearly innocent. Clark Navarro framed her for his brother's murder so he could get his hands on the hotel and saloon once they were both out of the picture. In the end, during Daisy's testimony, just when I was having the judge and jury compare the handwriting on the note to writing samples from both brothers, he tried to sneak out the back, but Marshal Ellery cuffed him right then and there in the middle of the courthouse – even before the verdict came back! I didn't even have a chance to show my diagrams of the bullets' trajectories that I was saving for the coup de grace - heh heh, no pun intended! Navarro was arraigned on the spot!

And it was me that proved all that! I had to find the evidence, and assemble the witnesses, and ask the right questions, and – "

"How much?" asked the Kid again.

"Where's your "Uncle" Mac?" Heyes asked, avoiding the question.

"It's Saturday night, where do ya think? Inside with his rich pals throwin' their money at each other in another one of their high-stakes poker games," answered Curry, jerking his head toward the ranch house's interior.

Heyes's eyes gleamed in the moonlight. He rose from his chair and started for the front door. Curry jumped up and blocked his path.

"Oh, no ya don't! You're not gonna go in there and blow all the money you got for winnin' that case!"

"Why not? I earned it! And what makes you think I would blow it?"

Curry rolled his eyes and crossed his arms across his chest. This show of stubbornness irked Heyes. Hadn't he just saved his ungrateful partner from 20 years in prison?!

"You should talk about blowing things!" he sputtered, finger to the Kid's chest. "You go prancing around getting yourself arrested and I'm the one has to bust you out. How many times does this make? Let's see, one, two, three…" he pretended to count on his fingers. "Meanwhile, I've been earning money – GOOD money, so - "

"Listen, Heyes," interrupted Curry, now with his finger to his partner's chest, "you never would have gotten that case if it hadn't been for me gettin' arrested! You never would have met up with Grace Navarro, much less get hired on as her lawyer if you weren't there pretendin' to be _my_ lawyer!"

Heyes's expression softened slightly, a small smile began to play on his lips.

"And you loved every minute of it!" the Kid accused. "Admit it, Heyes! You loved playin' lawyer and gettin' Grace off."

Heyes' eyes quickly flicked to his partner's face – had Kid managed that double entendre intentionally? No, he wasn't even aware of what he'd said. Heyes started chuckling. He sank back down in the chair, grinning fully now, both dimples making an appearance.

"Kid, you're right. It _was_ fun. And I was good at it. Damn good." He paused, grinning broadly, basking in the memory. "Ya know," he stated, "I think for the first time since we started going for this amnesty, I've got an idea of what I wanna do after we get it."

"Become a lawyer?"

"Why not?"

Kid considered momentarily, then offered his agreement, "Seems to me it's one profession that your silver tongue and nimble mind are really suited to, Heyes. You even knew what time the verdict would come in! Heyes, how in hell did you know that? And – and this has been buggin' me for a while now – that very first day when I was in jail, how did you know which tray to put the note on?"

Heyes chuckled, then answered simply, "That's easy. I didn't."

"What?"

"See, Kid, I knew there were two other prisoners in there besides you, so I had a one-in-three chance of choosing the right tray. You know I'm an odds player, and those odds seemed pretty good to me. Plus, I reckoned if the note ended up on one of the other prisoners' trays, they'd probably say something about it and you'd find out about it anyway. _And_ even if you never got the note, well, it didn't really matter because I was planning on showing up disguised as Wendell Hotchkiss regardless. The note itself wasn't really that significant. It was just a nice touch."

"Oh," answered Curry, somewhat disappointed by Heyes's logic. Then he brightened and asked,

"But what about the verdict?"

"The verdict?" echoed Heyes.

"9:15," prompted Curry.

"9:15?" asked Heyes, not following.

"Yeah," Kid answered, somewhat impatiently. "How'd you know the jury would come back at 9:15?"

"I didn't know the jury would come back at 9:15!" exclaimed Heyes. "How could I possibly have known what time the jury would come back? I mean, I was pretty damn certain what their verdict would be, but how could I know how long it would take them to deliberate?"

"Then why'd you tell that little Daisy girl to tell me 9:15?" insisted Kid.

"Oh, that was another nice touch, wasn't it? The bullet!" Heyes grinned, impressed by his own plan. "You didn't really need a bullet, but I just felt safer knowing you had one – you, know, just in case. I was going to make up an excuse to come in one last time to smuggle it to you, but then I happened to notice Grace's lip rouge tube. Kid, did you ever know those tubes are the perfect size to fit a .45 caliber bullet? Well, some of them are. I imagine they come in different sizes, but - "

"Heyes," interrupted Curry in a firm tone. "9:15."

Heyes continued blithely, "So when that dizzy little Daisy wanted to give you a farewell kiss in exchange for being my key witness, well, I just - "

"Heyes," Kid repeated, even more firmly this time. "Why did you tell Daisy to tell me 9:15?"

"Oh, Kid, she didn't say 9:15; she said 9/15."

"Huh?"

"9/15. September 15th. Today. She meant I would meet you here at Big Mac's place on September 15th, which is today. And here I am. I reckoned you'd wait to make your move after everyone in town went to sleep, like two or three in the morning. Like any sensible person with experience in jail-breaking would have done."

Kid looked alarmed, then gobstruck. Finally he ventured, "Do you mean to say, it was pure dumb luck that the jury brought back their verdict at 9:15 – which was the time I was "makin' my move"?!"

"Yup."

The two partners stared at each other in disbelief for a beat or two. Finally, Heyes broke the silence.

"I guess somebody up there must like us after all," he said, grinning. "To quote the Bard himself,

'There are more things on Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'"

"Heyes, I don't know who in the hell this Bard is or this Horatio guy neither, but all's I can say is, you've done it again."

~~ END~~

Author's note: This started out to be a Kid Curry story, but somehow that crafty Hannibal Heyes hijacked it. Also, I don't pretend to be an expert in criminal law. Anything I know about a murder investigation or a court case comes from television and movies. But remember, it's just supposed to be entertainment! Hope the plot wasn't too hole-y, but I pretty much gave up trying to patch it up.


End file.
